Farquhar strode to the rail as Gilchrist appeared on the larboard ladder.

'Pipe all hands!' His voice was crisp, indifferent to Gilchrist's confusion. 'Get the maincourse on her, and the stuns'ls, too, if need be.' He paused, his head cocked to listen to the shrill of calls between decks. 'We will let her fall off a couple of points.' He glanced at the master's mate. 'And let us all hope Mr. Bagley's estimate is correct.'

As the men poured to their stations at the braces and at the foot of each mast, Pascoe hurried across the quarterdeck to supervise Luce's signal party.

Bolitho barred his way. 'I am glad you are spared another cut, Adam.'

The youth's sunburned features split in a smile. 'It was easy, Uncle.'

Bolitho snapped, "That time perhaps. It was not of your making, I know that, too.'

The smile vanished. 'I am sorry, er, sir.'

'If you want to cross swords again, then please ask me, Adam.'

Pascoe hesitated and then smiled awkwardly. 'Yes, sir.' 'Now be off with you. I want our ships to see the signals today.'

Farquhar joined him by the rail. 'A fine young man, sir.' Their eyes met.

Then Bolitho said calmly, 'And I'd be obliged, Captain Farquhar, if we can keep him that way.'

Farquhar smiled and walked forward to watch the men dashing aloft to the yards.

Major Leroux appeared by the poop ladder and touched his hat.

'It sounds like a pair of ships, sir. Probably Nicator or Buzzard getting to grips with a Frenchman.'

Bolitho looked up as the great mainsail billowed free from its yard, the thunder of canvas drowning the distant sound of gunfire.

'I hope you may be right, Major.'

Leroux was watching his own men at the mizzen braces. In an almost conversational tone he said, 'My Corporal Cuttler is an excellent marksman, sir. If he earned his living in a fairground he would doubtless be a man of wealth and property by now.'

He walked away as Lieutenant Nepean hurried to him to make his report.

Allday had come on deck and said, 'He's a dark one is Major Leroux, sir.'

Bolifho looked at him. 'In what way ?'

Allday gave a lazy smile. 'He had that Corporal Cuttler down in the wardroom lobby. With his long musket he's so proud of.'

'D'you mean that he was ordering Cuttler to be ready to shoot ?' He stared at Allday's smiling face.

The coxswain shook his head. 'Not exactly, sir. He asked him if he could shoot a sword out of a man's hand, if necessary like.'

Bolitho walked to the nettings. 'I do not know about vou, Allday.'

He saw Leroux watching him, his features expressionless. For that brief moment he felt quite sorry for Gilchrist.

*

Bolitho leaned back to watch Lysander's towering spread of canvas. Ship of the line perhaps, but Farquhar was driving her with the fanatical demand of a frigate captain.

With the wind coming almost directly astern the ship was forging ahead well, her yards and shrouds creaking and vibrating under the tall pyramids of sails. Every so often her bow would dip and the forecastle would then be drenched in great showers of spray, like slivers of glass in the bright glare.

Bolitho stood halfway up a poop ladder, feeling his hair blowing wildly as he peered ahead of the lifting and plunging bowsprit. The gunfire had ceased, and he could see dark brown smoke drifting along the horizon, the uncertain silhouette of a large ship under reduced sails.

From the mainmast crosstrees he heard Luce yell, 'She's Nicator, sir!'

Farquhar, who had sent Luce aloft with his big signals telescope, paused in his restless pacing and snapped, 'I should damn well hope so!' He glared at Fitz-Clarence. 'What the hell is she firing at ?'

Luce called again, his voice excited, and totally unaware of the tensions far below his dizzy perch. ' 'Nother vessel on her lee side, sir! I think they're grappling!'

Farquhar swung round. 'Mr. Pascoe. If you think it not too undignified for a lieutenant to swarm up the ratlines like a damn monkey, I'd be obliged for a more rational report.'

Pascoe grinned and threw off his coat before hurrying to the main shrouds.

Farquhar saw Bolitho watching and shrugged. 'Luce comes of a good family, but I fear his powers of description would be better suited to poetry than to a man o' war.'

Bolitho raised his eyes to see Pascoe hanging out and down as he pulled himself around the futtock shrouds and up beyond the maintop. How easy he made it look. He turned his attention to the distant ships, unable to torture himself with his hatred of heights.

'A glass, please.'

He felt one handed to him and trained it through the angled rigging. Yes, it was easy to recognise Nicator's bluff outline, the dull yellow paint of her figurehead. Beyond her hull he could see three masts, only one of which was square-rigged, as far as he could tell.

He heard Pascoe shout, 'Barquentine, sir! I can see her flag!' A pause while Farquhar stared up at the swaying masthead until his eyes watered. 'A Yankee, sir!'

Farquhar turned and looked at Bolitho. He said sourly, 'As if we haven't troubles enough!'

Bolitho tried to hide his disappointment from those who were watching his reactions. An American merchantman. Going about her affairs. There was nothing they could do about that, even if she was trading with the enemy. Blockade was one thing, but to provoke another war with the new United States would receive no praise from King and Parliament.

Bolitho said, 'Signal the rest of our ships to remain in the patrol area.' He watched an out-thrust spur of land, almost hidden in mist and haze. 'We have enough risk as it is, to be standing so close to the Isles of Hyeres, without leading the whole squadron ashore.'

Farquhar nodded. 'Bosun's mate! Call Mr. Luce to the deck!'

Minutes later, in response to Luce's signals, Osiris and the prize tacked heavily away from their leader to begin the long beat back to more open waters.

Bolitho said, 'Make to Nicator that we are joining her directly.'

What was Probyn doing? It was natural enough to feel resentment at the sight of an American flag, especially to those, like Probyn, who had been taken prisoner during the revolution. But it was over and done with, and time for it to become a part of history. If a war was provoked by some act of stupidity, England would be worse off than ever. Fighting France and Spain, and an America which was now far more powerful than she had been those fifteen years back.

'Nicator has acknowledged, sir.' Luce sounded breathless from his hasty descent down a backstay.

'Very well.'

It took another half-hour to manoeuvre close enough to heave-to. By that time Nicator had ungrappled the American vessel, but as she had drifted downwind Bolitho had seen her poop spotted with the scarlet coats of Probyn's marines.

He snapped, 'Call away my barge.' He looked at Farquhar. 'It'll save time, if nothing else.'

The barge was swayed up and over the lee gangway, the crew tumbling into her almost before she had touched the water alongside. Allday's voice pursued the bargemen like a trumpet, and by the time Lysander was hove-to and Bolitho had reached the entry port, all was ready.

He said quietly, 'Keep a weather-eye open for Buzzard. She should be beating round from the east'rd shortly.' He looked grimly at Farquhar's handsome features. 'I will send her to the admiral with my despatches.'

Farquhar shrugged. 'I am sorry. I'd hoped for something of value.'

But Bolitho was already climbing down the entry port stairs, trying not to lower his head to watch the sea sluicing along the rounded hull and lifting the barge towards his legs.

He paused, counting seconds, and then as the barge swam up beneath him he jumped out and down, Allday's order to cast off coming before he had taken a proper breath.

He sat in the sternsheets with as much dignity as he could manage and said, 'To Nicator, Allday.'

He watched the other seventy-four's crossed yards towering above him, the slackness of some of her running-rigging. Like the man, he thought, untidy.

Allday steered the barge around the ship's great counter and towards her entry port. Bolitho was too busy watching the barquentine to care for Probyn's feelings or the inconvenience of a visit from his commodore.

She was a lean, graceful vessel, and her name, Santa Paula, stood out in rich gold against a completely black hull.

'Toss your oars!' Allday swung the tiller as the bowman hooked on to Nicator's main chains.

Bolitho said, 'Return to the ship, Allday.' He saw the sudden doubt. 'It is all right this time. Nicator is still an English vessel, I trust!'

Allday touched his forehead and grinned. 'I'll watch for your signal, sir.'

Bolitho scrambled up to the entry port, noticing how scarred were the wooden stairs, while the chain plates of the main shrouds were badly dappled with red rust.

He found Probyn waiting with the side-party, his portly figure doused with spray.

He said, ‘I fear the reception is short-handed, sir, but my marines are aboard the Yankee.'

'So I see.' Bolitho began to walk aft, away from the curious faces by the port. 'Now tell me. What happened ?'

Probyn stared at him. 'We ran down on the barquentine at noon, sir. I guessed she was a runner trying to pass through our patrol, so I signalled her to heave-to.' He nodded, sensing Bolitho's mood. 'I know we are not supposed to get involved with American neutrality, but - '

'There is no but about it.'

Bolitho glanced at the ship's two helmsmen. They looked as if they were dressed in the same clothes as when they had been caught by the press. All the captains knew his opinion about that. He had put it in his written orders to ensure that every man, pressed or volunteer, should begin life aboard ship in a proper issue of slop clothing. It was such a cheap but vital thing that he was amazed at the stupidity of some captains who were so miserly they issued nothing until their wretched seamen were almost in rags. Probyn knew it well enough, and had outwardly complied. But out of sight, out of mind, apparently. He would deal with that later.

He added, 'What was your true reason?'

Probyn led the way aft to his quarters. ‘I am badly short of hands, sir. I had to sail from England before I was given a fair chance of recruitment, otherwise . . .'

Bolitho stared at him. 'And you sent a party into an American ship to press some of her people ?'

Probyn paused and regarded him resentfully. 'It is well known that hundreds, many hundreds, of our seamen desert to the American flag each year.'

Bolitho did know it, and it was a very sore point indeed on both sides of the Atlantic. The British Government had stated that they considered any seamen to be fair game for a short-handed naval vessel, unless the American captains in question carried certificates of citizenship for all their people who were so entitled.

The American President, on the other hand, was equally firm. He had demanded that once a man was signed into an American ship that was evidence enough the man was American. Documents could be destroyed or ignored. The American flag could not.

He said, 'We heard gunfire, too.'

Probyn thrust past a marine sentry and answered, 'The Yankee refused to heave-to even after a warning shot. I'll not take that from anyone.' He hesitated in the small lobby to the cabin. 'I have her master aboard, under guard, sir.' He sounded suddenly apprehensive. 'Now that you are here, I suppose I had best hand him over to you?'

Bolitho watched him coldly. 'Take me to him.'

The barquentine's master was seated in the stern cabin with one of Probyn's senior midshipmen for company. He stood up and eyed Bolitho with obvious surprise.

'So there is some higher authority, eh ?' He had a soft accent, but it failed to conceal his anger.

'I am Richard Bolitho, Commodore of this British squadron.' He walked to the windows, adding, 'I have been hearing about your refusal to heave-to.'

The American retorted hotly, 'Heave-to be damned! I've a hard enough living to earn without being fired on by a bloody Englishman!'

Bolitho sat down and looked at him. A sturdy man with a neat .brown beard, the Santa Paula's master was about his own age.

'And your name?'

'Well, Captain Thurgood.' He smiled. 'Of New Bedford. The shortage of seamen is a constant worry for a King's officer in time of war.'

Thurgood sat down, ignoring Probyn completely.

'That will have to remain your problem, Commodore. I am not at war, and my hands are not for King George.' He relaxed slightly. 'My government will make the strongest protest and take all the action needed once I have laid my complaint.'

Bolifho nodded. "That is your privilege, Captain. But you know as well as I that some of your crew will be no more American than Westminster Abbey.' He held up one hand. 'And I know what you will say to that. No matter. You are obviously a shrewd man, and I see no value in our arguing.' He stood up. 'I shall have you returned to your fine barquentine, Captain, and I will send you a gift of some excellent cheese which I brought from England. I hope it will ease if not remove the hurt we have done you.'

Thurgood was on his feet. 'You mean I can go ?' He stared from Bolitho to Probyn's fuming face with amazement. 'Well, I'll be . . .'

Bolitho added evenly, 'Your cargo, Captain ? May I enquire what it is ?'

Thurgood replied, 'Cheap red wine. A full hold of the stuff. In my home port they'd use it for paint!' He chuckled, his eyes vanishing into crow's feet. 'By God, you sure know how to scatter a man's anger!'

Probyn exclaimed, ‘I must protest!'

Bolitho said calmly, 'Please leave us, Captain Probyn. And tell your midshipman to go away. I am not in danger of my life.' He smiled at the American. 'Am I ?'

Thurgood grinned after the retreating Probyn. 'By God, I'm glad you came, Commodore. I think he'd have liked me kicking at his mainyard.'

'He was a prisoner in the last war.'

Thurgood shrugged. 'So was I.'

Bolitho picked up his hat. 'There is one thing, Captain. You sailed from Marseilles, no doubt.' He shook his head. 'It is not a trap. But it is unlikely you would have taken on a cargo like yours elsewhere, And you are bound for ?'

Thurgood watched him with amusement. 'Corfu. Then I'm off and away, back home to New Bedford. I've a wife and three boys there.'

'I envy you.' Bolitho did not see the look of warmth on the other man's face. 'I have a Spanish prize in company. We took her a while back.' He looked Thurgood in the eye. 'Now, if you were to exchange some of your seamen for, say, double the number of Spaniards." He watched the man's mind working busily. 'Well, I'd have thought you could drop them off when you return westward after you have delivered your cargo? I am certain the Spanish authorities would be very glad to reward you.'

Thurgood sounded doubtful. 'I ain't sure.'

Bolitho smiled. 'And they would not have to be paid. Nor would you have to share your profit with a larger crew than you need for the homeward voyage.'

Thurgood thrust out his hand. 'If ever you need employment, Commodore, and I mean ever, just come asking for me.' He shook his hand warmly. 'I've got a few bully-boys you can have. Trained seamen, but I will not miss them.'

Bolitho smiled. 'I dare say they will settle down.'

On deck it was oppressively hot, and the wind was rising and falling in gusts, making the ships lurch and stagger in a sickening motion.

Bolitho beckoned to Probyn. 'Make a signal to Lysander. I want the prize, Segura, to close with us. After that, send a good officer across to the Santa Paula with Captain Thurgood. He will explain what is needed.'

Probyn looked as if he would burst. 'If you say so, sir.’

Bolitho smiled at the American. 'When they are ready, I will hail for my coxswain to bring a good ripe cheese across to you. It might make even cheap wine palatable.'

Thurgood watched a boat being lowered from the quarter davits.

'I'll be off then, Commodore.' He studied him curiously. 'Bolitho, eh? We had a privateersman of that name in the war.'

'My brother.' Bolitho looked away. 'But he is dead now.'

Thurgood held out his hand. 'Good luck with whatever you intend. I shall tell my wife and sons about this meeting.' He grinned. 'An' the cheese.'

A lieutenant strode across the quarterdeck and touched his hat.

'Jolly boat's at the chains, sir.'

Thurgood made to leave but hung back, his face set in a frown.

'I want no part of this, or any other war. I've had a belly-full.' He dropped one eyelid in a wink. 'But if I was in charge of a force as weak as yours I'd be thinking very seriously of hauling off.'

Bolitho tried to conceal his excitement. His anxiety. 'You would?'

Thurgood grinned. 'I'm told there's a fleet at Toulon, and three hundred transports for good measure.'

'Thank you, Captain.' Bolitho walked with him to the rail. 'And a safe voyage to you also.'

He waited until Thurgood was in the boat and then said, 'Send for my barge.'

A fleet and three hundred transports. It was an armada.

Probyn's voice cut into his racing thoughts. 'I must lodge the strongest protest! I was humiliated in front of that Yankee!'

Bolitho swung on him, his eyes blazing. 'Humiliated, were you ? And how do you imagine I felt to see a ship of the line firing on an unarmed vessel ? To know that one of my captains was prepared to risk unnecessary killing, a war if necessary, just to get what he wants for himself?' He kept his voice low. 'And all because you knew that I would take any blame, was that it?'

"That was unjust, sir!' Some of the bluster had gone.

'I dare say.' Bolitho regarded him evenly. 'But do not take me for a fool. That I do find humiliating.'

He strode to the entry port, seeing his barge curtsying across the blue water towards him.

'You'll get your men, Captain. You would have probably been given them anyway, had you used common sense instead of a broadside.' He nodded towards some seamen at the boat tackles. 'Look at them, Captain. Would you fight for anyone who kept you in worse comfort than a dog ?' He did not wait for an answer. 'Care for them. Or they'll not fight for you.'

He leaned over the rail and cupped his hands. 'Take your bundle to the barquentine, Allday! Then return for me!'

Allday waved one arm and steered the barge clear of the side.

An hour later Bolitho was back aboard his own ship, with Farquhar barely able to hide his curiosity.

Bolitho said, 'Make a signal to Harebell to close with us immediately. I cannot wait for Javal. Commander Inch can carry my despatches to the admiral.'

He waited while Farquhar shouted for Luce, and the barge was hoisted, dripping, on to the boat tier.

Farquhar came back and asked, 'May I enquire the nature of your plan, sir?' He pointed to the Segura which had almost reached the other ships. 'And what is she doing ?'

'I am sending some of the Spanish seamen to Captain Thurgood in exchange for the barquentine's, er, non-Americans.'

Farquhar pouted. 'It will leave us short-handed, sir.'

'But it has provided us with information.' He could hide his relief no longer. 'The French have a great fleet here. Harebell must sail with all speed, before dusk if possible.'

Farquhar nodded. 'Captain Probyn will be happy about his good fortune.'

'Perhaps.' Bolitho recalled the captain's face. He had made an enemy there. Maybe he had always been one. All those years.

He said, 'Tomorrow, if nothing is changed, we will have a conference.'

He unbuckled his sword and handed it to Allday. He discovered that he was suddenly ravenously hungry. For the first time in many days.

As he made to walk aft he turned and looked at Farquhar again. 'If you were a French general, and did not wish your transports to be involved in a battle before your main objective. And if that objective was North Africa, and beyond that to India perhaps.' He watched Farquhar's eyes. 'Where would you go to prepare for the final assault ?'

Farquhar rested both hands on the main bitts and frowned. 'To avoid a battle?' He looked up. 'Sicily might be too dangerous. A point on the coast of Africa which was far enough away from my objective to avoid suspicion would equally be too far for men and horses to travel and be fit to fight at the end of it.' He nodded slowly. 'I think I would choose an island already under my country's control.' He paused. 'Does that sound sensible, sir?'

Farquhar crossed to the master's side and said, 'The commodore believes that the French may be gathering at Corfu.'

Grubb watched him warily. 'Aye, sir. But if you'll pardon the liberty, I thought it was your suggestion!'

Farquhar stared at him and then at the poop. 'The devil, you say!' He smiled tightly. 'That was cleverly done!'

10 Committed

For a further two frustrating weeks Bolitho's ships tacked back and forth, keeping to the south-west of Toulon's approaches, an area which would give them maximum advantage should the enemy emerge. With Harebell making all possible speed to Gibraltar, the work of inshore patrol fell to Captain Javal's frigate. While the seventy-fours and their prize wallowed unhappily under reduced canvas, Javal’s topsails were usually to be seen sneaking around a distant headland, or standing hove-to in direct view of the enemy.

But even Javal's taunting manoeuvres had no effect. The French stayed where they were, and did nothing.

And then, on a hot, sultry evening, as Buzzard fetched off the land for the fortieth time, Javal took it upon himself to lower a cutter in the charge of his first lieutenant, Mr. Mears. It was more to ease the boredom than anything, for the French had showed no sign of sending out a frigate or corvette to chase the prowling Buzzard away.

On that particular night a French fisherman reacted in much the same way. Ignoring the instructions of the port admiral and garrison commander, he put to sea in his small boat, with his son and cousin for crew.

The first that Bolitho learned of these coincidences was when Buzzard's cutter, complete with Captain Javal and three French fishermen, arrived alongside on the following morning.

The fisherman was elderly but defiant. He showed little concern for his life, and probably considered that as the English had rammed and sunk his little boat he had nothing left to live for.

Bolitho listened to Javal's report before having the three Frenchmen brought to his cabin. It was strangely moving. The old, grey-bearded fisherman, his cousin, as red as a lobster with a belly like a puncheon of rum, and the son, straight-backed, angry. Afraid.

Bolitho explained through Farquhar, whose French was excellent, die he wanted information about Toulon. Not unnaturally, the fisherman told him to rot in hell. The son shouted 'Death to the English!' before being cuffed into a flood of tears by Sergeant Gritton.

The cousin, on the other hand, was more than practical. He explained that the boat had been all they owned. All they had to feed their families and eke out a poor living in a town where the military enjoyed the best of everything. It was very likely true.

Despite his great girth and his red, cunning face, the cousin was obviously the thinking member of the crew.

He suggested, warily at first, that if Bolitho provided another boat, and perhaps a little money or food, he would be prepared to tell him what he wanted to know.

Javal snapped, 'I'll have the varmint seized up and flogged, sir! I'll give him boat!'

'That way we will learn nothing useful.' Bolitho walked to the windows and watched some low banks of pale cloud. A change in the weather perhaps. 'Tell him, Captain Farquhar, that he can have the boat and some food. You can signal for a boat to be sent from the Segura.' To Javal he added, 'Those fishermen will be unable to confide what they have seen to their authorities. The fact they disobeyed a port-order by putting to sea and return with a strange boat is proof enough of treachery.'

Java] swallowed hard. 'Then you intend to release them, sir?'

'We may come this way again, Captain.' Javal's astonishment settled it. 'You cannot choose your friends in war.'

And so, while the fisherman and his son were taken to examine the Spanish longboat, the fat cousin described what he had seen every day in Toulon.

The Santa Paula's master had given Bolitho a fair description, but if anything it was a conservative estimate. A well-found fleet, consisting of ships of the line a plenty, and one of which, according to the fisherman, was of one hundred and twenty guns or more. She, it appeared, wore the flag of Vice Admiral de Brueys, and another that of Rear Admiral Villeneuve. Bolitho had heard of them both many times, and respected them. Preparations went on daily to provision and service this great assembly of ships, and the local victualling officers were making a special effort to purchase every available kind of food. Which had been the main reason for the fishermen putting to sea. Even their meagre catch would have brought ready money from the navy.

Farquhar asked the man one careful question. Bolitho watched his reaction, his gestures above his head and towards the sea.

Farquhar explained softly, 'The fleet is not yet ready to sail. It is said to be waiting for the right time. The leader of the expedition, too.' His eyebrows lifted very slightly. 'It could be so.'

Bolitho nodded. He did not speak much French, but knew enough to recognise the name Bonaparte.

Farquhar said, 'He insists that one portion is ready to weigh, sir. Several storeships, and some kind of escort.' He glanced meaningly at the man's red features. 'He is too much of a coward to lie, I think. He says that the ships will not sail because of our presence. Their cargo is probably very valuable.'

'And their destination.' Bolitho made his decision. 'Send them off in their boat. Then signal the squadron to close on Lysander. We will stand further to the south'rd.'

'Will they risk it, sir?'

'I would.' Bolitho looked at Javal. ‘I will report your first lieutenant's part in all this. He did well. As did you.'

Risk, luck, coincidence, all had shared in this first real piece of vital intelligence. With his three seventy-fours staying well out to sea, and only Buzzard's lookouts watching for the enemy's dash from port, Bolitho was in the best position to act as the situation dictated.

And when Harebell reached the admiral, it would be just a matter of time before a fleet, and not a mere squadron, came to complete what they had begun.

On the day that he watched the fishermen put over the side to begin their long haul back to the coast, Bolitho ordered his ships to their new position, some twenty miles South-west of Toulon. He wrote his orders and had them passed to each captain. He discussed the final details with Farquhar and Grubb, and when dusk finally descended he went to his cabin and enjoyed a filling meal of boiled pork from the cask, and the last of his cheese which he had carried from England.

As he sat at his table drinking a cup of coffee and listening to the creak and rattle of ship's gear, he thought of Falmouth and the empty house there. He thought, too, of the American captain, and the wife who was waiting for him in New Bedford. What a homecoming it would be. He could almost see it in his mind. How long would it be, he wondered, before he saw Falmouth again? He had been in Lysander for two months, and already it felt ten times as long. Perhaps now that luck was with them again time would pass more swiftly.

With that thought uppermost in his mind he went to his cot, and within minutes was in a deep, dreamless sleep.

It seemed as if his head had been on the pillow but a short while when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He awoke, staring into Allday's anxious face which shone yellow in a lantern above the cot.

"What is it?'

His senses returned and he struggled over the side of the cot. He had no further need to ask, and he cursed himself for sleeping so deeply. The night was alive with noise and violent motion, so that he almost fell as he groped his way to his chest.

Allday said, 'It's come on to blow, sir! Getting worse by the minute!'

Bolitho dragged on his breeches, staggering as the deck plunged and threw him against Allday.

'In the name of heaven, why wasn't I told of this ?'

Allday said nothing, but turned as Ozzard appeared blinking in the door, another lantern above his head.

'Get the commodore's things, man!'

But Bolitho snapped, 'Just a coat. I must go on deck!'

Even before he reached the quarterdeck he knew it was no mere gale. It was a full-scale storm, and as he ducked beneath the poop deck beams he saw that the wheel was doubly manned, the seamen clinging to the spokes while the deck heaved violently to leeward.

It took several more moments to accustom his eyes to the dark, to pitch his hearing above the moan of wind, the boom and thunder of canvas overhead.

Figures darted past him, crouching and groping for handholds as spray lifted above the nettings and doused them violently before gurgling away through the scuppers. Every stay and shroud seemed to be vibrating and humming, and he found time to pity the awakened watch below, who even now must be fighting out along the yards to fist and reef the treacherous canvas.

He saw Farquhar, his slim figure very pale against the sea and sky, his hands cupped as he yelled to one of the lieutenants. He noticed Bolitho and lurched towards him, his fair hair streaming from his head. He was dressed only in shirt and breeches, and his feet were bare.

If any other evidence was needed to show the height of the emergency, Bolitho could not think of it.

Farquhar shouted, 'Wind's veered to the nor'-west, sir! I've ordered the hands to reef tops'ls and take in the forecourse!'

He swung round as a sound like a musket shot came from forward, and then changed to a great rippling tear as the foresail exploded into a mass of flapping fragments.

'They will be spared that!’

Bolitho clawed his way to the rail and peered along the slanting deck. To one side the sea was as black as pitch. To the other it lifted and surged in tremendous banks of foam, building up beneath the quarter until the lee gunports were awash. Of the other ships there was no sign, and he guessed that each captain would be too preoccupied to care much about Lysander's plight.

He heard Grubb's deep voice rising like a bellow. 'Ease off, lads!' You'll 'ave the sticks out of 'er else!'

A man slipped beneath the weather gangway and fell kicking and yelling in a flood of swirling water. He came up against an eighteen-pounder, and Bolitho could almost imagine that he heard his ribs stove in.

'In heaven's name, Captain, why so late ? The squadron will be driven for miles in this!'

A broken halliard fell from aloft, writhing about the upper deck like a live thing. More would follow unless Farquhar acted, and immediately.

Farquhar spat out spray and replied, 'That fool Gilchrist! He left it too long! By God, where is that man, I'll have him - '

Bolitho gripped his arm. 'There is no time now! We must lie-to and make the best of it.'

Farquhar stared at him, nodding. 'Yes, sir. At once!' He sounded desperate.

Bolitho did not release his arm. 'Bring her about as soon as you've shortened sail!' He had to shout to make himself heard. 'We will lie-to under the main tops'lsl' He ducked, closing his eyes tightly as a wall of spray tumbled over the empty nettings and swept mercilessly across the deck and down to the one below. 'But have the main stays'l manned and ready to set in case the other carries away!'

He heard Farquhar's voice receding as he struggled along the rail, hand over hand, saw the blurred shapes of seamen hurrying to obey. Above in the darkness he could see the wildly flapping sails where the topmen were still fighting to obey the last order. Voices, too, caught up in the deafening chorus of wind and sea, of straining rigging and spars.

Grubb shouted harshly, 'Pass the word! Stand by to come about!' He blinked at Bolitho. 'I'll bet those damned Frogs are laughin', sir!'

Bolitho did not answer. But it was uppermost in his thoughts. A strong north-westerly was a curse to his squadron. To any French commander trying to gauge the right time to quit Toulon it would be merciful, a chance he could not possibly ignore.

He watched as Gilchrist's beanpole figure emerged above the quarterdeck ladder, shining dully in his long tarpaulin coat. Gilchrist had probably been more frightened of his captain than he had of the first storm signs. Or so eager to prove that he could manage any eventuality he had left it far too late for anything but submission.

He wiped his streaming face with one sleeve, feeling the sting of salt in his eyes and mouth. When he peered aloft again he saw that much of the canvas had vanished, although the fore topsail was only lashed to its yard at one end. At the other a great balloon of canvas filled and puffed as if it contained a living, savage monster. Something passed across the scudding cloud formations, and he ran to the rail as it struck the forecastle with a sickening thud.

A voice called hoarsely, 'Get that man below to the sickbay' Then Lieutenant Veitch. 'Belay that order. There's nought the surgeon can do for him'

Poor wretch, he thought. Fighting the lashing sail, with only his feet to support his body as he craned over the great, swaying yard. His messmates on either side of him, all cursing and yelling into the darkness, punching the wet, hard canvas until their nails were torn out, their knuckles raw. One slip, an extra gust of wind, and he had fallen.

'Man the braces there! Stand by on the quarterdeck' Grubb snarled, 'Ease the spoke when I gives the word!

Treat 'em like they was babies!' 'Helm a'lee!'

More figures staggered through the dismal gloom, a midshipman bleeding from the head, a seaman holding his arm to his side, teeth bared with agony.

'Lee braces! Heave!'

The Lysander dipped her seventeen-hundred tons of oak and artillery heavily into a maelstrom of bursting spray. Above, in a shortened, iron-hard rectangle, the reefed topsail seemed to swing independent of their muscle and bone, every mast groaning to the strain of wind and sea.

Bolitho saw it all, heard his ship and seamen fighting to bring the bows round and into the wind, to hold her under command. If the rudder failed, or the topsail was ripped to ribbons like the forecourse, it might be too late for them to set the staysail. And that could carry away just as easily.

But with the wheel hard over, the helmsmen's bare feet treading wet planking as if they were walking uphill, the two-decker responded. Bolitho watched the sea boiling inboard from the weather gangway to the beakhead, saw it surging across and down to the opposite bulwark, taking men and loose gear in its path. Much of it would find its way deep into the hull. The pumps must be going now, but in the din he could not hear them. Stores would be spoiled, fresh water, as precious as gunpowder, polluted and rendered useless.

He released the nettings and allowed the wind to thrust him along the tilting deck until he fought his way aft to the compass.

Grubb shouted, 'Ship's 'ead is almost due north, sir!' He turned to watch as a whimpering man was carried past. 'She might be able to 'old it!'

'She must!' Bolitho saw his words go home. 'If we run before this wind we'll never beat back in time!'

Grubb watched him go and then said to a master's mate, 'How say you, Mr. Plowman ?'

Plowman gripped the binnacle for support, his coat shining like sodden silk in the feeble lamp. ‘I told Mr. Gilchrist to call all 'ands' He added angrily, 'God rot 'im, 'e might 'ave been the death of us all!' Grubb grimaced. 'Still time for that?

Bolitho was on his way forward to the rail again when he heard a yell.

'Heads below! Fore t'gallant's coming adrift!'

Before anyone could move or act the uppermost spar on the foremast tilted violently to leeward, hung for a few agonising seconds and then plunged down like a tree. Stays and shrouds all followed it in a great mass of rasping cordage and blocks, until with a jarring crash it came to rest below the starboard bow, the furled topgallant sail showing through the darkness like some nightmare tusk.

Grubb shouted, 'She's payin' off, sir!' He threw his considerable weight on the wheel. 'It's like a bloody anchor up forrard'

Bolitho saw Farquhar staggering along the weather gangway, drenched to the skin, one shoulder bare and bloodied by some fallen object from above. It was all plain to see. As if he were studying a diagram instead of watching a ship fighting for survival.

Had Herrick been in command at this moment none of it would have happened. No lieutenant would be too frightened to call him, and no matter what Herrick was like as a strategist and the squadron's second-in-command, he was a superb seaman.

Bolitho shouted, 'Get a strong party up forrard!' He strode past Farquhar, knowing that Allday was close on his heels. 'We don't have time to waste!'

Calls shrilled, and voices responded. Bolitho saw marines and seamen, some fully dressed, some naked, fighting through the torrential spray to where the boatswain and a handful of older men from the forecastle party were busy amidst the tangle of rigging.

Bolitho felt the ship lift and then dip heavily into a long trough, and heard several cries of alarm as the trapped topgallant mast and yard crashed against the hull.

He realised that Pascoe was already there and shouted, 'Are you in charge ?'

Pascoe shook his head. 'Mr. Yeo is cutting some of the rigging adrift, sir!' He ducked like a prize-fighter, his arms bent, as a great wall of water surged amongst the gasping men. 'And Mr. Gilchrist is leading the main party outboard by the cathead'

Bolitho nodded. 'Good.' To Allday he said, 'We'll add our weight. There's nothing more we can do aft.'

He groped his way down and through the huge coils of tarred rope, his shins and hands scarred within seconds.

A voice said 'Gawd, it's the commodore, lads!' Another muttered, 'Then we must be in a bad way!'

Bolitho peered over the side, seeing the frothy undertow beneath the bows, the broken mast surging and veering into the hull like a battering ram. In the darkness the jagged wood gleamed as if to mock their efforts. To put a seal on their hopes.

He saw Gilchrist waving his arms through the tangle, like a man seized by a terrible sea-creature.

'Axes, Mr. Yeo! Save the yard, but hack the mast away as soon as you can!'

A man tried to claw his way back from his precarious perch on the cathead, but Gilchrist seized him and forced him to look down past the massive anchor-stock, to the surging water below him.

'We save the ship, or go under together! Now catch a turn with that line, or I'll see your backbones tomorrow!'

Gilchrist's fury, his unintentional hint that there was indeed going to be a tomorrow, seemed to have an effect. Grunting and swearing they threw themselves into battle with the fallen spars, using their anger to hold fear at bay and drown the wail of the wind.

Bolitho worked alongside the anonymous figures, using the back-breaking work to steady his thoughts. The topgallant mast could be replaced. Herrick had made certain of a good stock of spare spars before leaving England. If the yard could be saved, the ship's sail-power should be normal again in a few days, once they enjoyed calmer weather. But it would take time. Time when they should have been on their station, the one he had so carefully selected to snare the enemy supply ships.

Gilchrist yelled, 'Mr. Pascoe! Take some men aft along the starboard gangway and grapple the spar!'

Pascoe nodded and touched the nearest men on shoulders or arms. 'Aye, sir!'

Gilchrist peered up at him. 'If you cannot save it, then at least make sure it causes no further harm to the hull!' He broke off, choking as spray leapt up and over the bowsprit.

When the water subsided in a great hissing torrent Bolitho saw that the man Gilchrist had been threatening had vanished. He was probably somewhere in the darkness, watching his ship moving away, his cries lost in the angry wave crests. More likely he had gone straight down. It was a sad fact that few sailors could swim. Bolitho found himself praying that the man had died quickly and had been spared the agony of being left out there alone.

Thud, thud, thud, the axes hacked savagely at the rigging, while other hands worked at hastily rigged tackles to sway the undamaged yard up and around the foremast.

'There she goes!'

The cry was taken up as with a grinding clatter of severed gear and cordage the released topgallant mast plunged freely down the lee side. Bolitho watched Pascoe's men struggling along the gangway trying to control the still-dangerous spar, and then caught his breath as a line parted and another went bar-taut, scraping along the gangway rail and catching Pascoe around the shoulders.

'Belay those lines!'

Midshipman Luce dashed down the gangway, heedless of the bursting spray. 'Cut him free!'

Another line snapped, and Bolitho felt his blood chill as Pascoe appeared to bow over the rail, dragged helplessly towards the sea by the surging mass of rigging.

But Luce was beside him now, his slim frame bent under the black ropes as he hacked upwards with an axe.

Yeo strode along the forecastle, his quick eye and twenty years at sea telling him instantly of the midshipman's danger.

'Avast there, Mr. Luce!'

But it was too late. As the keen blade slashed away one of the broken stays another tightened automatically, so that as Pascoe fell gasping into the arms of two seamen, Luce was pinned against the side, his arm taking the full weight. When the ship lifted sluggishly to the wind he cried out once, 'Oh God, help me!' Then as Yeo and the others reached him and cut the rigging free once and for all he fell senseless at their feet.

Pascoe felt his spine and grimaced. 'That was near -' He stared along the deck. 'Where is Bill Luce, sir ?' He struggled against the rail. 'Is he -'

'He was injured.' Bolitho felt the ship responding slowly to her freedom, indifferent perhaps to those who had suffered in the process. 'I have had him taken to the surgeon.'

Pascoe stared at him. 'Oh no, not after he saved my life!'

Bolitho sensed his distress, could see the grief despite the enclosing darkness.

He added, 'I will go below, Adam. You remain here.' It hurt him to continue, 'Others need you now.'

He walked aft, seeing Farquhar by the quarterdeck rail. As if he had never moved.

Farquhar blurted out, 'Thank you, sir! Seeing you there helped the men to rally.'

Bolitho looked at him. 'I doubt that. But one captain aft is enough!'

He peered up at the reefed topsail. Still iron-hard, but holding well, in spite of the enormous pressure. He said, ‘I am going to the sickbay.' 'Are you hurt, sir?'

'Call me instantly if anything changes.' He walked to the companion. 'No. Not physically, that is.'

As he made his way down and down by one ladder to the next he was conscious of the sea noises becoming muted, the new sounds of straining timbers, the smells of bilge and tar rising to greet him. Lanterns swayed and cast leaning shadows as he continued through the lower gun deck and below Lysander's waterline, where natural light was unknown the year round.

Outside this small sickbay he found several seamen resting after treatment, some bandaged, some lying in an escape of sleep and rum. The air was thick with the combined smells of pain and blood.

He entered the sickbay where Henry Shaddock, the surgeon, was talking to some of his assistants as they arranged two more lanterns above his table.

Shaddock glanced up and saw Bolitho. 'Sir ?'

He was a tired-looking man with thin hair. In the swaying yellow light he appeared almost bald, although he was not yet thirty. Bolitho had found him to be a good doctor, which was unfortunately rare in King's ships.

'How is Mr. Luce ?'

The men stood aside, and Bolitho realised that the midshipman was already lying on the table. He was naked, and his face was set in a frown, the skin very pale. Shacklock lifted a rough dressing from his shoulder.

Bolitho guessed that the rope had cut through the flesh and muscle like wire through cheese. The lower arm lay at an unnatural angle, the fingers unclenched and relaxed.

Shacklock held his own hand above the midshipman's arm, the palm open like a ruler. It was less than six inches below the point of his shoulder.

He said, 'It must come off, sir.' He pursed his lips. 'Even then. . .'

Bolitho looked down at Luce's pale face. Seventeen years of age. No age at all. 'Are you certain?'

What was the point? He had heard it asked so often.

'Yes.' Shacklock nodded to his assistants. "The sooner the better. He might not come to his senses before it is done.'

At that moment Luce's eyes opened. They stayed fixed on Bolitho's face, unmoving, and yet in those few seconds they seemed to understand everything which had happened, and what was to come.

He made to move, but Bolitho gripped his uninjured shoulder. His skin was like ice, and his hair still wet with the spray from that other howling world three decks above.

He said, 'You saved Mr. Pascoe's life.' He kept his voice steady. 'Adam will come as soon as he can.'

Beyond the boy's head he saw Shacklock taking two knives from a case. One short, the other long and thin. An assistant was wiping something below a lantern, and as the deck tilted and the man lurched sideways he realised it was a saw.

Luce whispered quietly, 'My arm, sir?' He was starting to weep. 'Please, sir!'

Bolitho reached out and took a cup of rum from a loblolly boy. 'Drink this.' He forced it to his lips. 'As much as you can.'

He heard footsteps and then Pascoe's voice, taut and barely recognisable.

'The captain sends his respects, sir. We have just sighted Nicator.'

Bolitho straightened his back but kept his hand on Luce's shoulder.

'Thank you.' Around him the shadows loomed nearer, like angels of death, as Shacklock's men waited to begin. 'Stay with him, Adam.'

He made himself look at the midshipman. He was staring up at him, the rum and tears mingling on his throat. Only his mouth moved as he whispered again, 'Please.'

He waited until Pascoe was by the boy's head and then said to Shacklock, 'Do your best.'

The surgeon nodded. 'I have had the blades warmed to lessen the shock, sir.'

As Bolitho made to leave he saw the surgeon give a signal, heard Luce cry out as the assistants gripped his legs and held his head back on the table.

Bolitho had reached the upper deck when Luce screamed. The sound seemed to follow him up and into the wind, where it ended abruptly.

Bolitho rested both hands on his chart and studied it for several more seconds. The storm had blown itself out in two long days and nights, so that the warm sunlight and the gentle breeze in the sails made it feel as if the ship was all but becalmed.

Around his table the other captains sat watching him, each wrapped in his own thoughts, all weary from the storm's anger and the battle for survival.

Throughout the scattered squadron seventeen men had been killed. By falls from aloft, or being swept overboard. Some had vanished without trace. As if they had never been.

It was mid-afternoon, and with the ships sailing in a loose formation once again Bolitho had ordered all his captains to gather for a conference.

He looked at Javal's dark features. His news had been expected, and yet perhaps even to the last he had still hoped. But as they had sighted Buzzard's topsails shortly after dawn the signal had been shouted down from the maintop. The French had put to sea. A dozen ships, maybe more, had sailed with the stiff north-west wind under their coat-tails, while Javal and his men had watched helplessly while they fought to keep the enemy in view. The French commander had even allowed for such an eventuality. Two frigates had swept out of the storm and had raked Buzzard's rigging before standing off to follow the convoy into the darkness.

For a fighter like Javal it must have been terrible. With his rigging slashed and the storm mounting every minute, he had been forced to watch the French slipping away. He had tried to make contact with the squadron by firing signal guns and loosing off a flare. But while Gilchrist had waited too late and the ships of the line had steered comfortably along their allotted course the storm had made even that contact impossible.

Bolitho said slowly, "The admiral should have examined the despatches sent in Harebell. He will assume that we are capable of standing watch over Toulon, or of shadowing any vessels which try to elude us.'

Overhead he heard the stamp of feet as Leroux's marines completed another drill. Hammers and adzes added their own sounds to show that the carpenter's crew were also busy completing storm repairs.

He looked at Herrick, wondering what he was thinking.

Probyn said heavily, 'Now that the French have avoided your er, ambush, it must leave us all in some doubt. Perhaps we placed too much value in hearsay, in rumour. Who knows where those French ships may be now?' He looked slowly round the table. 'Let alone what we can hope to do without information ?'

Bolitho watched him impassively. Probyn had been careful to use 'we'. He had meant 'you'.

Javal shrugged and yawned. 'I could detach from the squadron, sir. I might be able to find some if not all of the Frenchmen. After all, the storm will not have made their passage an easy one.'

Bolitho felt them looking at him. Some would understand, perhaps share his dilemma.

If he sent the Buzzard in pursuit he would be without 'eyes'. The two-deckers and the prize ship would have their visibility reduced to the vision of the best masthead lookout. So, with little agility or speed to investigate, he had to hold on to his one and only frigate.

Probyn added, 'Of course, we could return to Gibraltar, sir. Better to add our strength to any fleet which may be assembling than to wander blindly to no purpose.'

Herrick spoke for the first time. 'That would be an admission of failure! It would be the wrong decision, in my opinion.' He looked at Bolitho, his eyes level. 'We know how you must feel, sir.'

Farquhar snapped abruptly, 'It is the devil's own luck!' Javal said, 'It's the devil's own choice.' He looked at Bolitho curiously. 'For you, sir.' 'Yes.'

Bolitho let his gaze move along and down across the chart of the Mediterranean. All those miles. Even if he were right in his guesswork, and it was no more than that as Probyn had stated, he might still fail to make contact with the enemy. Ships could pass one another in the night or in foul weather and be none the wiser. An empire could fall because of a wrong choice, a hasty decision.

He said, 'This is what we will do.' It had come out as if it had been there in his mind from the beginning. 'Our present position, as far as we can estimate, is about sixty miles west of Corsica's north coast.' He tapped the chart with his dividers. 'Cape Corse. The storm carried us too far to the east'rd to make another passage profitable.' He saw them crane forward above the table. 'So we will continue, and once around the north cape of Corsica we will steer south-east.' He watched his dividers moving remorselessly further and further down the Italian coastline. 'We will put into Syracuse to take on water and land our badly injured people. The Sicilians may have news for us. They are at peace with the French, but have little love for them.'

He looked up sharply. 'While we are at anchor, Buzzard will sail independently, around the eastern side of Sicily, by way of the Messina Strait, and make a rendezvous with the squadron off Malta. I will be able to give you better information, Captain Javal, once we have made some progress.' He eyed them separately. He was committed. And he had committed each one of them, and every man-jack in the squadron.

Herrick cleared his throat. 'And then, sir ?'

'Then, Captain Herrick.' He held his gaze, seeing the worry building up on his face. 'We will know what to expect.' He smiled briefly. 'I hope.'

Probyn spread his heavy hands on the table. They were like pink crabs. 'If we fail there also, sir, I'd not be happy to face the admiral.'

Bolitho faced him calmly. 'It is support I want, Captain Probyn. Not sympathy.'

Spray pattered against the stern windows, and he added, 'I think it best if you return to your ships. The wind is freshening, by the feel of it.'

The chairs scraped back from the table and they looked at each other like strangers.

Probyn gathered up his hat and sword and said, 'I trust that new orders will be passed to us, sir ?' He did not look at him as he spoke.

Herrick snapped, 'There is no need for that, surely ?' 'I think there is.' Probyn fiddled with his sword belt. 'I would not wish to insist upon it.' Bolitho nodded. 'It will be done.'

Farquhar rapped on the screen door with his knuckles, and when the sentry appeared he said, 'Signal for the boats. Tell the first lieutenant to assemble the side party.'

Probyn asked, 'How is your first lieutenant, by the way ?'

'Adequate.' Farquhar watched him coldly.

Bolitho turned away. 'You know him then ?'

Probyn coughed. 'Not really, sir. Perhaps a passing acquaintance.'

They took their leave, as boat by boat they were pulled back to their various commands.

Herrick was the last. He said simply, 'The fore t'gallant mast, sir. When I knew of Lysander's difficulties in the storm, I got to thinking. Maybe she took a ball through the fore-rigging and the rope woolding around the mast hid the damage. It is not unknown.'

Bolitho smiled. 'Perhaps. But it was none of your doing.'

Bolitho saw him looking around the decks and tried to read his mind. Loss, anxiety, or merely curiosity?

'Osiris is a smart ship, sir. I've no complaints. But she's no heart, no zest.'

Bolitho wanted to reach out for him. To make him know that the sense of loss went both ways. But it was not yet time, and he knew it.

He said, 'Take care, Thomas.'

The marine guard shuffled to attention and the bosun's mates raised their silver calls in preparation to see Herrick over the side. But he hung back, his face lined with emotions.

Then he said, 'If you take the squadron to the Turkish forts and beyond, you'll not find me far astern.' He faltered, his eyes pleading. 'I just wanted you to know. To understand.'

Bolitho held out his hand. 'I do, Thomas.' He gripped it tightly. 'Now.'

He watched Farquhar and Herrick exchange salutes, and then walked slowly across the quarterdeck to the weather side.

The sails were booming in confusion while the ship lay hove-to to rid herself of her visitors, and Bolitho did not hear the footsteps beside him.

It was Pascoe, his dark eyes heavy with strain. He had been standing watches and carrying out his duties throughout the storm, but at every available moment he had been below with his friend.

Bolitho asked, 'Is something wrong ?'

Pascoe lifted his arms and let them fall again. 'Sir, I - ' He shook his head. 'He is gone. He died a minute ago.'

Bolitho watched him, seeing his distress. Sharing it.

'He was a fine boy.'

He touched his arm, turning him slightiy so that some passing marines should not see his face.

'And it is often harder to accept that sailors give their lives to the sea as much as they do in battle.'

Pascoe shivered. 'He never complained. Not after that first terrible cut. I held his hand. And just today I thought he was a little better. And then - ' He broke off, unable to finish.

Farquhar strode to the rail and touched his hat. 'Permission to get the squadron under way, sir?' He glanced at Pascoe, his eyes without compassion. 'The wind is certainly freshening.'

'If you please. And signal Buzzard to take station to lee'rd and ahead of the squadron. He knows what to expect.' He stepped in front of Pascoe. 'I think this officer might be excused from duty for the present.'

Farquhar nodded. 'Very well.'

But Pascoe said, 'I'm all right now, sir.' He adjusted his hat and moved towards the ladder. 'I'd like to attend to my work, if I may.'

Farquhar's lips twisted in a smile. 'Then it is settled.'

Bolitho followed them to the rail, seeing the seamen manning the braces and halliards, waiting to execute the first part of his new orders.

Pascoe hesitated, his foot in the air above the gun deck.

'There is one thing, sir. When will we be burying him ?'

'At dusk.' He watched the pain in Pascoe's eyes.

'I just thought. My sword. I'd like it to go over with him. I've not much else.'

Bolitho waited until Pascoe had joined his division and then returned to the poop ladder.

Grubb remarked quietly, 'A fine young officer 'e'll be one day, sir.'

Bolitho nodded. 'He suits me very well as he stands.'

'Aye.' The master shaded his red-rimmed eyes to watch the flapping pendant high above the deck. 'There's some '00 can give orders, but never learn nuthin'. Thank God 'e's not one o' them.'

Bolitho continued up the ladder and walked right aft to the gilded taffrail.

Below the poop he heard the helmsman's cry, 'Course due east, sirl Steady as she goes!'

He watched the lithe frigate forging swiftly ahead of her bulky consorts, but for once felt no envy of her freedom. This was his place, and only the rights of his decisions would decide if he should hold it.

He thought of Pascoe and Herrick, and Allday who was moving about in the cabin below.

And this time he had to be right, if only for men such as these.

11 The Letter

'Will that be all for now, sir?' Moffitt, the clerk, regarded Bolitho gloomily, his weedy frame angled to the deck.

'Yes. Thank you.' Bolitho leaned back in his chair and loosened his neckcloth. 'Tell Ozzard to light some lanterns.' He looked astern through the great windows at the fiery orange sunset.

One more dragging day. It was two weeks since he had committed his ships to the passage south, and to all intents they had the sea to themselves. Day after day, using the light winds to steer south-east along the Italian coastline, and then tacking around to the westward to follow the hazy shores of Sicily. Now they were heading east again, with the island of Sicily lying about thirty miles off the larboard bow. And apart from a few Arab craft with their strange lateen rig, they had been unable to make contact with another living soul. They had sighted some isolated sails, but they had made off before the slow-moving seventy-fours could draw near enough to examine them.

Bolitho stared at the empty desk, wondering why he bothered to dictate another empty day's report for Moffitt's benefit. It was unlikely to carry much weight, unless as additional evidence at his own court martial.

He wondered what the Buzzard was doing, and if she had had any luck in finding information about the vanished Frenchmen. Or if, once free of his commodore's eye, and his needs blurred by distance, Javal had gone off to seek gains of his own. He knew he was being unfair to Javal, just as he understood that it was his own desperation which was causing it.

He stood up and strode to the door. It had been his custom for as long as he could remember to find peace, if not answers

Bolitho saw Nicator's fore topsail flapping and then refilling as she changed course slightly astern of Osiris. How untroubled the three ships must appear. If there had been anyone to see them pass. Nothing to reveal the teeming life within their rounded hulls, or the work of repairing storm damage which even now was still going on. Changing watches, sail and gun drill, eating and sleeping. It was their world. His world.

And yet, even after a full day of it, probably a twin of the one before, and the next beyond it, these men could still find time to escape from each other in their own way. Bone carving, and scrimshaw work, intricate designs made out of rope and scraps of metal, it was difficult to understand how such delicate and finely made objects could come from the hands of British seamen. Snuff-boxes, too, much prized in the wardroom by less experienced officers, which had been worked and polished from chunks of salt beef. Such boxes were as hard and as brightly polished as mahogany, and said much for their maker's skill as well as for their digestion under normal circumstances.

"Deck there! Land on the lee bow!'

Bolitho walked to the opposite side and peered towards the other horizon, already deep purple as the sky followed the retreating sun like a curtain. That would be a part of Malta, he thought, Gozo most likely.

Below the poop rail he heard a master's mate bark, "You, what's yer name? Larssen, is it?* A mumbled reply and then the same voice. I told yer, I told yer, an' I told yer! Watch the compass and watch the set of the sails. Don't just stand a'gawpin' until the ship pays off under yer! Jesus, you'll never rate quartermaster, not in a 'undred years !'

Another voice this time. Bolitho recognised the haughty lilt of Lieutenant Fitz-Clarence. 'What's the fuss, Mr Bagley ?'

The master's mate replied, 'Nuthin' much. Just that the poor old ship is so full of furriners I 'ave to tell 'em everythin' twice!'

Bolitho began to walk loosely back and forth across the empty poop. Bagley was right of course. Like many King's ships, Lysander had gathered a good portion of foreign seamen into her belly. Swedes and Spaniards, Hanoverians and Danes. There were eleven Negroes, and one Canadian who spoke better French than Farquhar.

He thought suddenly of the American captain, John Thurgood. He would have dropped his cargo and be on his return run by now. His would not be the only happy homecoming. The Spanish sailors whom Bolitho had sent to the barquentine from the prize ship Segura would make their wives and mothers weep and laugh when Thurgood sent them ashore in their own country.

He paused by the rail again and looked astern. But the Segura was too well hidden by the other ships to be seen. He sighed. He had sent some of her crew to an American barquentine, and one of her boats he had given to some French fishermen in exchange for information. Information which he had been unable to transform into results. Because of the storm ? Or because he had failed to grasp the situation completely, and by so doing had failed his squadron ?

Feet clattered on a ladder and the midshipman of the watch approached him warily.

'Well, Mr. Glasson?'

The midshipman touched his hat. 'Mr. Fitz-Clarence's respects, sir. The masthead has reported sighting land to the south-east. The master confirms it is Malta, sir.'

'Thank you.'

Bolitho looked at him gravely. Glasson was seventeen, and had taken over as signals midshipman following Luce's death. There was no other similarity. Glasson was hard and sharp-featured, with a tongue and a sense of discipline to match. He would make a bad lieutenant, if he lived that long. It was strange and pitiful how many there were like Glasson. Who never learned from the frightful stories of mutiny, when the power of the quarterdeck became a small and isolated community in the twinkling of an eye. Between the wars there has been Bligh's Bounty, which had captured the nation's imagination. Civilians were ever eager to seek out the good or evil of happenings in which they were not involved, and where they suffered no threat or inconvenience. Then the great uprisings at the Nore and Spithead, both caused by grievances long-outstanding by the men of the fleet. And just before he had sailed for Gibraltar to hoist his broad pendant in Lysander Bolitho had listened, shocked and appalled, to the latest evidence of what could happen when men and their resources were pressed beyond limits. H.M. frigate Hermione had sailed into the Spanish port of La Guaira and surrendered herself to the enemy. Her officers had been butchered in the most horrible manner, and some of her loyal hands had suffered a similar fate. The mutineers had offered their ship to an enemy in exchange for their own freedom. Bolitho did not know much more of the mutiny, other than that the frigate had been under the command of a tyrant. As he looked at Glasson, much of whose confidence was fast departing under his commodore's stare, he marvelled that the lesson still went unheeded.

'What are your hopes for the future ?

Glasson drew himself up. 'To serve my King, sir, and to gain my own command.'

*Very commendable.' Bolitho added dryly, 'Did you learn anything from duties aboard our prize ?'

The midshipman relaxed slightly. 'The Dons who man her are dolts. They know nothing, and their vessel is in a filthy state.'

Bolitho did not hear him, he was thinking of the letter, the French agent named Yves Gorse. He could feel the blood rushing through his brain like fire. Suppose the Frenchman did not know which vessel should be bringing instructions from Toulon ? With communications so difficult, and the final French intentions still a well-guarded secret, it was likely he would know little about the form of delivery.

He turned to Glasson. 'My compliments to the flag captain. I should like him to join me on the poop.'

Farquhar arrived five minutes later to find Bolitho striding from side to side, hands clasped behind him, as if he were in a state of trance.

Bolitho stopped and looked at him. 'I think maybe others gave it to me. I was too involved with my anxieties to heed the obvious.'

'Sir?'

'I heard the master's mate, Bagley, reprimanding one of the helmsmen. Because he did not understand him immediately.'

Farquhar frowned. 'That would be Larssen, sir. I can have him removed.'

'No, no.' Bolitho faced him. 'It was not that. And something Glasson said about the Segura just now.'

'I see, sir.' Farquhar was lost. 'At least, I think I do.'

Bolitho smiled. 'Segura. We have been keeping her without knowing why. Vanity perhaps ? Evidence that we did not fail at everything? And as time went on we forgot she was there.'

Farquhar watched him doubtfully, his eyes glowing in the sunset. 'She's too slow for scouting, sir. I thought we'd agreed on that.'

Bolitho nodded. 'Have a new prize crew detailed, and send the remaining Spaniards into the squadron. Tell a lieutenant of your choice that I want the prize crew to be as foreign as he can find!'

'Aye, sir.' There was not even surprise now. Farquhar probably believed the strain and responsibility had at last driven him mad.

'And I want it done immediately. Signal the squadron to heave-to before the light goes completely.'

Farquhar made to hurry away. 'What will the lieutenant be required to do, if I may venture to ask, sir ?'

'Do, Captain ?' He turned away to conceal his sudden excitement. 'He will sail the Segura into Malta under false colours, American, I think. And there he will deliver a letter for me.'

Farquhar exclaimed, 'The French agent?'

'Just so.' He started to pace. 'I suggest you start at once.'

Farquhar waited a moment longer. 'It's a great risk, sir.'

'You told me that before. As did Thomas Herrick. Have you never taken risks ?'

Farquhar smiled. "The men will most probably desert once they are in Malta. And the officer in charge will be seized and likely hanged. The Knights of Malta are only too aware of the danger in incurring France's displeasure. They have been friendly to us in the past.' He shrugged. 'But the French army and navy are much nearer than they were then.'

'I agree. Nor would I expect a junior lieutenant to be used in this way.'

Farquhar watched him with new interest. 'You intend to go with Segura?'

'Under all circumstances. Yes.'

*

Midshipman Glasson had been right about one thing, Bolitho decided. The prize ship Segura was not only dirty, but also contained so many smells of varying ages and strength that it was hard not to retch when between decks.

It was pitch-dark by the time the new prize crew were ferried across in exchange for the remaining Spaniards, and with two good hands on the wheel and canvas reduced to a minimum for the night Segura was left to her own devices.

Bolitho sat in the tiny cabin and munched some salt pork and iron-hard biscuits which he tried to dissolve in the ship's plentiful supply of red wine.

Farquhar had picked Lieutenant Matthew Veitch to accompany him, and he had already proved that he was as good aboard an unfamiliar vessel as he had been directing Lysander's eighteen-pounders during their fight against the two Frenchmen. In his middle-twenties, Veitch appeared a good deal older and more experienced than his age suggested. He came from the north of England, from Tynemouth, and his hard accent, added to his normally stern features, made him seem too advanced for his years. But he could wipe it away with a ready smile, and Bolitho had noticed that his seamen liked and respected him.

Plowman, the senior master's mate, was again selected to join the expedition, and Mr. Midshipman Arthur Breen, a carrot-headed sixteen-year-old whose face was a mass of freckles, completed the vessel's senior authority.

They had been so busy settling into their new ship that the shadowy topsails of the three seventy-fours had vanished into the gathering darkness before anyone had found time to comment.

Bolitho looked up as Veitch entered the cramped cabin. 'Watch yourself!'

But it was too late. Veitch gave a gasp as his head cracked violently against a deck beam.

Bolitho pointed to a chest. 'Sit down and save your skull.' He pushed a wine bottle towards him. 'Is everything secure ?'

'Aye, sir.' Veitch threw back his head and drained a metal goblet. 'I've got 'em standing watch and watch. It keeps 'em busy, and makes sure we don't get pounced on by some enemy patrol.'

Bolitho listened to the vessel's unfamiliar sounds, the rattle of rigging, the very near movements of the rudder. Segura was roundly-built, probably Dutch originally, whenever originally had been. Her holds were spacious for her size, and packed to the seams with cargo and gunpowder. Her sail plan was austere, and manageable with the minimum amount of hands. Again, it made her almost certain to be Dutch-built. Profitable, both in space and size of crew, she had doubtless worked every coastline from the Baltic to the African shores. But she was old, and her Spanish masters had let her go badly. Plowman had already reported on the poor quality of her standing rigging and topping lifts, some of which he described as being 'as thin as a sailor's wallet'.

But Plowman was Grubb's right-hand man. Like the master, he was not content with unreliable workmanship.

Bolitho smiled to himself. If Plowman was bothered, the seamen selected for the prize crew appeared quite the opposite. Even aboard the Lysander, as he had spoken to them briefly before they had clambered into the boats, he had noticed their grins and nudges, the cheerful acceptance of their surprise role. Escape from boredom, something to do to break the daily routine, or maybe the fact that each was hand-picked helped to extend this carefree atmosphere. The notion they had been chosen mostly for their foreign tongues had not apparently arisen.

He could hear someone singing a strange, lilting song, and a regular chorus of voices as the watch below joined in. There was an unusual smell of cooking in the damp air between decks, too, further evidence of their new identity.

Veitch grinned. 'They've settled in well, sir. That's Larssen singing, and the one detailed to cook is a Dane, so God knows what we'll be eating tonight!'

Bolitho looked round as Plowman entered the cabin. He said, 'I've left Mr. Breen with the watch, sir.' He took the wine and regarded it gratefully. 'Well, thankee, sir.'

Bolitho glanced at them approvingly. Each, including himself, wore a plain blue coat, and a scruffier trio it would be hard to find. Typical, he hoped, of the countless hundreds of trading captains who sailed under every flag and carried any cargo they could find for a profit.

'Tomorrow we'll run for Malta.' Bolitho watched as Plowman tamped black tobacco in a long clay pipe. 'I am Captain,' he smiled gravely, 'Richard Pascoe. You can keep your own names. Mr. Veitch will be first mate. Mr. Plowman, second. My cox'n, Allday, will be filling the part of boatswain.'

Plowman hesitated and then thrust a great pot of tobacco across the rickety table.

'If you'd care to try it, sir? It's, well, it's fair.'

Bolitho took a pipe from a sandalwood box above the small chart table and handed another to Veitch.

'Anything once, Mr. Plowman!'

He became serious. 'I will go ashore with Allday and a boat's crew. You will appear to be preparing to open hatches. But be ready to cut the cable and put to sea if anything goes wrong. If this should happen, you can stand inshore for a further two nights. Where I have marked on the chart. If there is still no signal from me, you must rejoin the squadron at Syracuse. Captain Farquhar will act accordingly.'

The air thickened visibly with smoke, and Bolitho said, 'Fetch some more wine from the locker. Like our people up forrard, I feel strangely at peace. Tonight anyway.'

Shoes clicked overhead and Veitch smiled. 'Young Mr. Breen is alone up there. He is feeling like a post-captain, no doubt!'

Bolitho let the drowsiness move over him. He thought of Pascoe, his dark eyes eager and pleading as he had asked to be allowed to join him. He touched the old sword which lay against the table. Perhaps he should have left it in Lysander. If anything happened to him, the sword would probably disappear forever. And it was important in some strange way that Pascoe should have it. One day.

He did not see Veitch give a wink to Plowman, who rose and said, 'I'd better go an' relieve Mr. Breen, sir.'

Veitch nodded. 'And I must go forrard and see that all is well.'

He stood up and cracked his head again.

'Damn these stingy shipbuilders, sir!' He grinned ruefully. 'A ship of the line maybe is crowded, but she keeps a man's head on his shoulders!'

Alone once more, Bolitho leaned over his chart and studied it beneath a spiralling lantern. He removed his blue coat and loosened his neckcloth, feeling the sweat running freely down his spine. It was stiflingly hot, and the wine had not slaked his thirst.

Allday entered the cabin. 'I'm bringing something to eat in a minute, sir.' He wrinkled his nose. 'This hull stinks like Exeter market 1'

'The heat is no help to us.' Bolitho threw down his dividers. 'I will go on deck for a breath of air directly.'

'As you will, sir.' Allday watched him pass. 'I will send word when your meal is ready.'

He looked round the untidy cabin and shrugged. Damp, dirty and smelly it certainly was. But after the oppressive heat of the day it felt almost cool. He saw the empty wine bottles and chuckled. The commodore's heat was probably an inner one.

*

Bolitho shaded his eyes to examine the untidy sprawl of sand-coloured fortifications which protected every entrance to Valletta harbour. As they had made their slow approach, and had watched the sun rise behind Malta's weather-worn defences, it had been hard for some of the seamen to see it for anything but a fortress.

'Steady as you go.' Plowman shifted his sturdy frame around the helmsmen, a pipe jutting from his jaw.

Bolitho knew that he, like most of the others, was finding it difficult to act in this casual and slack fashion after the rigid discipline of a King's ship. And at no other time was there anything more important about a ship's appearance than when entering harbour.

Bolitho ran his eye along the littered deck. Seamen lounged against either bulwark, pointing at landmarks, some with genuine interest, others with elaborate pretence.

Midshipman Breen said, 'I've heard of this island many times, sir. I never thought I'd ever see it.'

Plowman grinned. 'Aye. Valletta was so named after the Grand Master of the Knights in honour of 'is defence of it against the Turks.'

'Were you here then?' Breen watched the master's mate with undisguised awe.

' 'Ardly, Mr. Breen. That was over two 'undred years back!' He looked at Veitch and shook his head. 'Was I 'ere indeed!'

The nearest fortress was gliding abeam now, its upper rampart crowded with colourful figures. It was apparently used as much as a thoroughfare as a bastion. Beyond it, Bolitho saw the glittering water opening up to receive the Segura. The harbour was busy with shipping and tiny oared boats which scurried back and forth from vessels to jetties like water-beetles. There were a few schooners, gaunt Arab dhows, and the more common feluccas with their huge lateen sails. Two painted and gilt-encrusted galliasses lay beside a flight of stone steps. Like things from the past. They might have looked not too much out of place when the Romans had conquered England, Bolitho thought. The Knights of Malta had used them very successfully over the centuries for harrying Turkish ports and shipping, and had done much to drive the Turks' influence away from the West, it was hoped for good.

But now, Malta's role had changed again. It had withdrawn on to its own resources, combing revenue and trade from ships which came to the harbour, or anchored out of sheer necessity through storm or attack by corsairs.

'Stand by the anchor.'

Bolitho strode to the foot of the mainmast and watched for any sign of a challenge. In fact, there was little interest, so he guessed that Segura was not the first vessel to enter wearing the American flag.

Allday whispered, 'By God, it will take Mr. Gilchrist a year to get these lads to jump like seamen again.' He grinned as one of the men spat deliberately on the deck and then grinned somewhat sheepishly at his companions. Such an act would have cost him a dozen lashes in Lysander.

Veitch called, 'Hands wear ship!'

Bolitho took a brass telescope and trained it on the longest stone jetty. Boats were already shoving off, laden to their gunwales with fruit, basketware and probably women as well. For despite the original Christian standards and guidance within these stout walls, the core had long since deteriorated, and it was hinted that even the Knights themselves looked more to personal enjoyments than to heaven. 'Helm a'lee!'

The Segura tilted above her shadow, the patched sails barely moving as she headed into the wind, and her rusting anchor splashed into clear water.

'Mr. Veitch. If you allow these bumboats alongside, I suggest you make certain their occupants stay in them. You can let a few aboard at a time. They'll get out of control otherwise.'

Veitch gave a rare smile. 'Aye, sir. It'd be a powerful combination, eh ? A hold full of wine, some British tars and whatever mischief these traders are about to offer 1'

Allday was already mustering a small but fearsome-looking anchor watch. Each man was armed with a cutlass, and in addition a heavy wooden stave.

'Lower the boat.'

Bolitho wiped his face and throat. It was more stifling in the harbour than below decks.

The first craft were already alongside, the merchants and boatmen standing upright to display their wares, and vieing with each other in a variety of tongues.

Veitch came aft again. 'All done, sir. I've got two swivels loaded with canister, and a stand of muskets hidden under the fo'c'sle. I noticed that the harbour batteries face seaward, so we'll be all right for the present.'

Bolitho nodded. 'People who build fortresses often make that mistake. They never expect an attack from the rear.'

He thought of the charge down a Spanish hillside, the crackle of musket fire, and the marines cheering like fiends as they went in with their bayonets fixed.

'Just as well.'

'Boat's lowered, sir.'

Allday strode to the bulwark by the main shrouds as a dark-skinned little man wearing a turban and hung about with beads, bottles and gaudy daggers tried to climb on to the deck. 'Wait for the order, Mustapha!’ Allday cupped his hand under the man's chin and sent him pitching back into the water. It raised a chorus of laughter and jeers from the unfortunate bumboatman's companions, who probably considered that this vessel's master, if hard-hearted, was at least going to be fair to all.

Veitch followed Bolitho to the rail. 'If an official comes aboard, sir, shall I bluff it out ?'

Bolitho had been in Malta before. He smiled grimly. 'Be guided by Mr. Plowman. I suspect he has visited here on other unorthodox missions. The port officers may decide to wait until you show signs of unloading. But if they come and ask for your papers, tell them what I told you to say. That we had to throw them overboard when chased by an unknown ship. You will find a bag of gold coins in the cabin to grease the hawse for you.'

Plowman grinned at the lieutenant's uncertainty. 'Love you, Mr. Veitch! Port officials are the same everywhere, an' with more an' more Yankee ships finding their ways into the Mediterranean they'll not want to lose a new sort of trade!'

Bolitho threw one leg over the rail. 'And watch our people. There may be French spies amongst these bumboatmen. It'll do no harm to spread the notion anywayl'

He clambered down into the Segura's remaining longboat. 'Shove off.'

As the boat pulled away he saw one of the traders tap smartly on a pile of rugs, and from beneath it he also saw a smooth, rounded arm pushing the covering aside. It was no man's arm. With Segura's captain out of the way, the real trading was about to begin.

Allday murmured, 'Top of the stairs, sir. Two officers of some kind.'

But the officers paid them little attention, other than a courteous nod, and continued to watch the anchored newcomer, possibly judging the right moment to board her.

Bolitho stood on the hot stonework and waited for Allday and one other to climb up beside him. The seaman was the Swede, Larssen. He had a cheerful, trusting expression, and one of the broadest pairs of shoulders Bolitho had seen.

Allday remarked, 'In case we run into a spot of trouble.' He paused and looked at him. 'You all right, sir?'

Bolitho replied, 'Of course. Don't fuss.' He turned away.

He heard Allday speaking to the boat's crew and tried not to keep plucking the shirt away from his body. It was wringing with sweat, and he felt strangely light-headed. The wine? Some of the food he had eaten last night ? Inwardly, another more likely reason was already forming and it was all he could do to conceal his sudden anxiety.

It was improbable, surely. He gritted his teeth, willing Allday to finish with the boat and follow him into some shadow. But it was not impossible. Nearly nine years ago, in the Great South'Sea. The fever had all but killed him. He had had a few bouts of it since, but not for a year or so. He almost cursed aloud. It could not be. It must not happen now of all times.

Allday said, 'Ready, sir.'

'Good. Now let us find that address and finish the matter.' He swayed and touched Allday's shoulder. 'Damn!’

As he pushed his way through a group of chattering traders, Allday watched him with sudden alarm.

Larssen asked, 'The capitan? Is he not well?'

Allday gripped his arm tightly. 'Listen, and listen good. If it's what I think it is, he's going to be all aback within the hour. Stay with me and do whatever I do, see ?'

The Swede shrugged. 'Yes, sir, Mr. All-Day!'

Mercifully the address was not far from the harbour stairs. In fact, the whitewalled building was attached to one of the smaller fortresses as if for support, and from a broad balcony Bolitho could see the end of a large telescope trained across the anchorage like a gun.

He felt beneath his coat to make sure his pistol was loose and ready to draw. He was taking a great gamble. Perhaps this French agent already knew of the vessel's fate which had been entrusted with this letter. The convoy which Buzzard had chased, and with which the ship had been sailing, might have been into Malta, left word and gone on to its intended destination.

But he still believed it unlikely. A letter of such importance, if such it was, would have been carried by one of the French
escorting frigates and then sent ashore by boat, probably at night.

The lower part of the building was filled with wine casks and mounds of straw for packing bottles. A few Maltese labourers were rolling empty barrels down a ramp to a cellar, and a bored-looking man with a ruffled shirt and mustard-coloured breeches was writing in a ledger on the top of another cask.

He looked up, his eyes wary. 'Si?' He could have been almost anything, from Greek to Dutchman.

Bolitho said, 'I only speak English. I'm master of the American ship which has just anchored.'

The man did not reply at once, but there was no doubt in his eyes, no lack of understanding.

Then he said, 'American. Yes. I understand.'

Bolitho cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice steady. 'I wish to see M'sieu Gorse.'

Again the unwavering stare. But no cry of alarm, no rush of feet from this man's assistants.

He replied eventually, 'I am not certain that I can arrange it.'

Allday stepped forward, his face bleak. 'If the cap'n says he wants to see him, that's it, matey! We ain't come all this way with a goddamn letter just to be kept waiting!'

The man gave a tight smile. 'I 'ave to be careful.' He looked meaningly at the harbour. 'So do you.'

He closed the ledger and beckoned them to some narrow stone steps.

Bolitho looked at Allday. 'Stay here with Larssen.' His mouth was completely dry, and the roof of it was burning like hot sand. He shook his head with sudden impatience. 'No arguments! If things go wrong now, one will have as much of a chance as three!' He tried to smile, to reassure him. 'I'll call soon enough if need be.'

He turned his back and followed the man up the steps. Through a door and into a long room, one side of which was open to the harbour and the spread of ships and buildings which shimmered in the sunlight like a great tapestry.

'Ah, Capitaine’ A white figure moved from the balcony. 'I 'alf expected it would be you.'

Yves Gorse was short and rotund. He had a thick black beard, as if to compensate for his complete baldness, and small, delicate hands which were never still.

Bolitho eyed him calmly. 'I would have been here sooner, but I ran foul of a British frigate. Had to throw my papers overboard, but managed to shake the bastard off in a storm.'

'I see.' Gorse pointed one delicate hand to a chair. 'Please be seated. You look unwell, Capitaine'

'I'm well enough.'

'Per'aps.' Gorse walked to the window and stared down at the water. 'And you are called?' 'Pascoe. It's a Cornish name.'

'I am aware of that, Capitaine.' He turned with remarkable lightness. 'But I am not aware of any Capitaine Pascoe?'

Bolitho shrugged. 'In this game we must learn to trust each other, surely ?'

'Game ?' Gorse moved around the room. 'It was never that. Although your country is still too young to appreciate the dangers.'

Bolitho retorted angrily, 'Have you forgotten about our Revolution ? I seem to recall it came a goodly few years before yours!'

'Touche!’ Gorse smiled, showing small but perfect teeth. 'I meant no offence. Now this letter. May I 'ave it?'

Bolitho pulled it from his pocket. 'You see, M'sieu, I trust you.'

Gorse opened the letter and held it in a patch of sunlight. Bolitho tried not to watch him, to search for some sign that Gorse had noticed how the letter had been re-sealed. Gorse, however, seemed satisfied. No, relieved was more the word for it.

He said, 'Good. Now per'aps you will take some wine. Better than the muck you will be carrying to er, where are you bound?'

Bolitho clenched his fingers in his pockets to control his limbs. They felt as if they were shaking so badly that Gorse must surely have noticed. This was the moment. If he tried to fence with Gorse, or attempted to trick him further, the man would know immediately. Gorse was a trusted enemy agent. His outward cover of wine merchant and chandler would have been built up carefully over many years. Which meant he would have no wish to return to France, a country very different from the one he must have left a long while ago. Many of his fellow merchants had breathed their last while staring down into a bloodied basket and waiting for the blade to drop.

Malta stood like an awkward sentinel in the gateway between the western and eastern Mediterranean. His work in gathering intelligence for France would stand him in good stead, especially when that fleet sailed from Toulon, as sail it must.

He replied casually, 'Corfu of course. There's no change. I'd have thought my friend John Thurgood would have anchored here in his Santa Paula. He had the same destination, as I expect you well know.'

Gorse smiled modestly. 'I know many things.'

Bolitho tried to relax, to find comfort that his lie was accepted. But he was feeling much worse, and he knew his breathing was getting faster. Visions flashed across his mind like parts of a nightmare. The pale beaches and waving palms at Tahiti, and beyond to other islands. Pictures at odds with men dying horribly of fever, and the remainder drawing together in terror and despair.

He heard himself ask, "The letter, was it good news ?'

'It was, Capitaine. Although the Maltese people may think otherwise when the time comes.' He appeared concerned. 'Really, I must insist that you rest. You do not seem well at all.'

Bolitho said, 'Fever. Long time ago. Coming back again.' He had to speak in short sentences. 'But I will be ready to sail.'

'But there is no 'urry. You can rest -' A look of alarm crossed his face. 'Unless it is dangerous to others ?'

Bolitho stood up and steadied himself against the chairback. 'No. Call my men. I will feel better aboard the ship.'

'As you wish.' He snapped his fingers to someone outside the door.

Even through his dizziness Bolitho was able to grasp that Gorse had been prepared to kill him, had posted men out of sight for the purpose, if he had failed to convince him.

He managed to ask, 'Do you wish me to carry any letters to Corfu, M'sieu’

'No.' Gorse regarded him worriedly. 'My next letters will come by more direct means.'

Allday loomed into the room, the Swede at his back.

Gorse snapped, 'Your captain is ill.'

Bolitho felt Allday gripping his arm. 'Easy, sir! We'll soon have you safe!'

Down the steep steps and out into the merciless sunlight again. He was more carried than aided, and he was dimly aware of passing Maltese grinning at the three sailors who had emerged so unsteadily from a wine store.

Allday barked, 'Go on ahead, Larssen, an' signal for the boat!' He added harshly, 'If you're not at the jetty when we gets there, I'll find you if it takes a lifetime!'

Bolitho felt himself being helped into some shade. His body was streaming with sweat, but unlike the previous time it was ice-cold, so that he could not stop shivering.

He gasped, 'Must... get... on.' It was no use. His strength was fading fast. 'Must. . . tell. . . the . . . squadron.' Then he collapsed completely.

Four seamen, led by Larssen, came running up from the harbour and stared at Allday with surprise.

Allday rapped, 'Lively, carry him to the boat!' He pulled off his coat and wrapped it round Bolitho. 'And don't stop for anyone!'

It seemed an endless stretch of water between jetty and ship, and every foot of the way Allday held Bolitho against his body, his eyes on the Segura's loosely furled sails, willing them closer.

As far as he was concerned, the squadron, the French and the whole bloody world could go their own way. If anything happened to Bolitho, nothing else would matter.

12 Divided Loyalties

Almost identical in a relentless heat-haze, the three ships of the line lay quietly at anchor within a cable's length of the land.

Captain Thomas Herrick crossed to the larboard side of Osiris's quarterdeck and stared at the unfamiliar hills, the lush greens and the hostile crags where some of the headland had fallen into the sea below. Syracuse, remote, even unfriendly, so that their powerful presence anchored amongst the unhurried movements of small coastal craft made the impression doubly vivid in Herrick's mind.

He bit his lip and toyed with the idea of going below again. But the great stern cabin always seemed to be waiting, lying there like a trap. Part of Farquhar. He shifted his gaze to Lysander and felt the old longing and despair welling up to join his other constant anxiety.

They had been at anchor for over two weeks. The Syracuse garrison commandant had been aboard Lysander several times, accompanied on each occasion by a rotund, worried-looking Englishman, John Manning, who was, as Herrick understood it, one of His Brittanic Majesty's last official representatives in the island. For even if Sicily showed no sign of helping France, she was equally determined not to display open friendship to King George.

Herrick moved restlessly about the deck, only partly aware of the blazing heat across his shoulders whenever he showed himself beyond one of the awnings.

When he had first heard of Bolitho's intention to find and contact a French agent in Malta, it had already been too late to protest. Segura had been swallowed up in the darkness, and from that moment on Herrick had fretted and worried continuously. And now it was all of three weeks since Segura had parted company. Not a sign of the prize ship, nor any word from the British representative in Syracuse that she had entered or left Valletta harbour.

John Manning was more concerned about finding reasons for the three seventy-fours to stay at anchor in a port which was officially neutral. Repairs, taking on food and water, all the usual reasons had been sent ashore. And still no word came.

Bolitho must have been seized by the Maltese authorities. They were even more frightened of the French than the Sicilians, if half Herrick had heard was true. Or the enemy agent might have caught and killed him. Herrick looked towards the open sea until his eyes watered. Bolitho's place was here, in a world he understood. Where he was known by name, if not by personal contact, by most of the men in the fleet.

He thought suddenly of Javal, and found himself hating him. He had not come into Syracuse at all. After his own passage through the Messina Strait he had been ordered to rendezvous with the squadron off Malta. Failing that, and Bolitho had always given them plenty of alternatives, he would anchor here and await developments. Perhaps he, too, had run foul of an enemy force ?

But if only be would come. Farquhar would have no choice then but to send Buzzard in search of Segura and her small crew.

Herrick had visited Lysander several times, without being invited, to discover what Farquhar intended to do. As always, he was met by a blank wall, a manner and attitude which rarely failed to rouse and confuse him. Farquhar was imperturbable. If he was troubled at Bolitho's absence, he was certainly hiding it very well.

His visits to his old ship had been made more painful by the obvious pleasure of those who had hurried to greet him. Leroux, and old Grubb, and Yeo, the boatswain. In Gilchrist he had seen the biggest change of all since Farquhar's taking command. Like a man on a razor's edge, someone who rarely found time to rest or be at ease, he was almost a stranger.

Quite unlike Osiris's first lieutenant, he thought bitterly. Lieutenant Cecil Outhwaite, a bland young man in his middle twenties, was very like a frog in appearance. Low forehead, wide mouth, and eyes which were very dark and limpid. He had a slight lisp, and went about his duties as if bored by the whole business. Outhwaite, like Farquhar, came of a powerful family, and why he ever became a sea officer was beyond Herrick completely.

But then the two ships were totally unlike each other also. Off watch in Lysander, the seamen had skylarked and found time to joke about their lot under all but the most harsh circumstances. In this ship there was no such feeling. Like Outhwaite, the sailors went about their work cat-footed, and when below were as silent as monks.

Herrick had tried to ease this unnerving tension aside, but as with Osiris's last captain, he was met at every level by an unbreachable wall. Farquhar had run the ship to the highest point of efficiency, cleanliness and appearance. For the people who made all that possible he had allowed nothing.

And yet some, especially Outhwaite, showed a ready respect for him. 'He don't tolerate fools, y'know.' The froglike face had watched him curiously. 'An' he's a damn quick temper for the scoundrels, too!'

The officer of the watch snapped, 'Ship rounding the point!' He saw Herrick and added harshly, 'Take the lookout's name for not reporting sooner!'

Herrick snatched a glass and hurried to the nettings. For a while longer the newcomer's topsails were riding lifelessly above a drifting curtain of haze, and then as her jib boom and beakhead thrust into view Herrick knew she was the sloop of war Harebell.

He pounded one fist into the other, his eyes misting with strain. At last. Her commander, Francis Inch, would do anything for Bolitho. And his little sloop was even better suited for looking for him.

'Ah, sir, I see you have sighted her.' Outhwaite joined him by the rail, his hat tilted rakishly over his eyes.

He was an odd bird, Herrick thought. He wore his dull brown hair in a queue so long that the end of it was level with his sword belt. When most sea officers followed the new army custom of wearing their hair shorter, Outhwaite apparently intended to retain his grip on the past.

'Harebell’

Herrick watched the sudden activity aboard Lysander, the signal flapping listlessly from her yards. Farquhar would want to know what was happening elsewhere, and as quickly as it took Inch's gig to cross the water.

'Harebell's dropped her hook, sir.' Outhwaite showed only mild interest. 'She's too soon back from her mission to have visited England. So we'll not know how things are in London, eh?'

Herrick did not know what things in London were, nor did he care.

'I'm going below, Mr. Outhwaite. Call me the moment that Lysander signals for captains to repair aboard.' 'Aye, sir.'

Outhwaite smiled and touched his hat. He felt an unusual admiration for Captain Herrick. Rather like his father did for a rustic gamekeeper or groom. Reliable but quaint. The way he was so obviously worried about the commodore's disappearance, for instance. Outhwaite could not imagine what sort of experiences and dangers they must have shared in the past to create such a bond. A bond which even Bolitho's action about a change of commands had not diminished.

He watched the boat pulling away from Harebell towards the flagship, Inch's gold-laced hat in the sternsheets. Somewhat different from Charles Farquhaf, he thought. He looked on one man's loss as an opening for his own gain. Outhwaite nodded. As it should be.

But for most of the afternoon, while Herrick sat or paced restlessly in Farquhar's beautifully equipped cabin, no signal came, nor any rumour of what Harebell had carried with her to Syracuse.

With a telescope he had examined the sloop more than once through the quarter gallery, and had seen the great scars of bared woodwork where the sea had done its best to hamper her, the patches in her loosely furled sails as evidence of Inch's determination to lose no time with his despatches.

He glared at the skylight as someone stamped overhead. Damn Farquhar to hell! Even this moment he was unwilling to share with his fellow captains.

There was a sharp rap at the door and a midshipman stared in at him. 'Beg pardon, sir, but Mr. Outhwaite sends his respects and -'

Herrick stood up. 'The flagship has signalled for me at last ?' He did not bother to hide his sarcasm.

'N-no, sir.' The midshipman stared at him warily. 'Captain Farquhar is corning to us.'

Herrick snatched his hat. 'I will come up.'

He tried to imagine what was happening. Whatever it was had moved Farquhar to act swiftly at last.

Later, as the calls trilled and the marines banged their muskets to the present, Herrick watched Farquhar's handsome face for some indication. But there was nothing, beyond a slight smile at the corners of his mouth.

He snapped, 'Cabin.' And strode past Herrick with barely a glance at the assembled marines.

In the cabin he turned and faced Herrick.

'Harebell has brought despatches from Gibraltar." He darted a glance around the cabin. 'Some wine would not come amiss.'

Herrick asked, "Then there is no news of the commodore ?'

Farquhar stared at him. 'Did I say there was ?' He shrugged. 'Really, Thomas, you are the most stubborn of men!'

'I thought perhaps that Harebell might have sighted ...'

'Commander Inch has brought news of more pressing matters.' He sounded irritated at Herrick's interruption. 'Admiral Lord St. Vincent has been kept fully informed. Those heavy guns which we captured must have convinced him. He has appointed Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson to command a fleet which will be powerful and ready enough to enter the Mediterranean and seek out the French, once and for all?

Herrick looked away. It was good news of course, or should have been. Bolitho had been given the trust he needed to bring this plan into being. But now that an idea was fast becoming a reality, Bolitho was not here to share in the rewards he deserved.

Farquhar eyed him coldly. 'I have written my despatch for the admiral. Harebell will be making sail as soon as she has taken on water.'

Herrick faced him, his eyes filling with astonishment. 'But you will not release the sloop without sending her first to Malta?'

'You are wrong.'

'But-but-'

Farquhar snapped, 'When you were flag captain you had your opportunity to put your ideals into operation. It is too late now for misgivings. So do not blame me, Captain Herrick. If anyone failed the commodore, it was you!'

Herrick stared at the deck and at the bulkhead, seeing neither. It was true what Farquhar had said. All of it.

Farquhar added quietly, 'The squadron will remain here until we receive new orders. I have persuaded Mr. Manning that further "repairs" are vital to our survival.'

Herrick heard the words but their meaning did not reach him for several long seconds.

He exclaimed, 'But, you mustn't ignore all that the commodore has discovered. The prizes we've taken, the information we've gathered. It all points to Corfu.' He heard his voice pleading, but no longer cared. 'You can't just stay here and do nothing!'

Farquhar shrugged. 'Rumours. I cannot afford to squander the squadron to the points of the compass. When the first supporting ships arrive I intend -'

Herrick stared at him, disgusted. 'You will be ready to meet them. To visit Nelson in person, is that it ?'

Farquhar frowned. 'Do not press me too far! I only came to you because I intend to give you back Lysander.'

Herrick looked around the beautiful cabin. Far more suited to a flagship than Lysander could ever be.

Farquhar added, 'Harebell brought other, less rousing news. My father, Sir Edward, died two days after I left England.'

Herrick could only stare at him, his mind clearing and sharpening the pain. Farquhar had everything now. There was no remorse on his face, no sense of loss.

He had the title at last, and all the land and property which went with it. And when Nelson came to the Mediterranean he would appoint a new commodore for this squadron. Sir Charles Farquhar. "He asked huskily, 'Have you told Captain Probyn yet ?'

'All in good time.' Farquhar was far away, his eyes reaching beyond Sicily and beyond again. 'Probyn behaves as if stupidity was a virtue. You should know that.' He walked to the stern windows. 'I have ordered my servant to bring my things across before dusk. You may transfer back to Lysander as soon as you receive my written appointment. That pleases you, surely ?'

'I've small room for pleasure at present, Sir Charles.' He watched for some reaction, but Farquhar had already accepted and grown into the title within hours of hearing the news. He looked away in case Farquhar should see his sudden anxiety.

'I have a favour to ask. And I don't find it an easy task.' 'Well?'

‘I believe that the commodore was right.' 'Perhaps. We shall see, one day.'

Herrick persisted, 'You could detach a ship. If you are remaining here under Sicilian protection, one ship less would aid the deception.'

'Continue.' Farquhar watched him calmly. 'And where would this one ship be heading, might I ask?'

'You know that, too, Sir Charles. Corfu. To discover what the French are doing there.'

‘I see.'

Farquhar walked a few paces to the table and looked with distaste at Herrick's chart and the mass of scribbled calculations.

'Please.' Herrick watched him desperately. 'I've never asked you for anything before.' He hesitated. 'I'm asking now.'

‘Very well. Your orders would be such that you would act on your own initiative.'

‘Thank you.'

Farquhar's eyebrows lifted. ‘You thank me ? It is your own ruin you are demanding. Corfu is of no consequence. The big fight will be outside Toulon, or on the shores of Egypt.' He shook his head sadly. "When I was a midshipman in the Phalarope, and you her first lieutenant, eventually, I used to listen to the men talking about you. How you would always speak up for them.' He turned away. 'I hope there will be someone to speak up for you when the time comes. But I doubt it.'

He became impatient and banged sharply on the door. 'Sentry! Pass the word for the first lieutenant!'

Then he looked at Herrick again. 'Return to your precious Lysander now. Before I change my mind. I'll send you your orders at once.'

Herrick nodded. 'And if you get the chance, sir .. .'

'Yes. I'll try to discover what happened to the commodore, although -' He did not finish it.

Outhwaite appeared in the door. 'Sir?'

'Captain Herrick is returning to his own ship.'

The frogface was expressionless. 'By whose order, sir?' Farquhar smiled lightly. 'Mine.'

As Herrick made to leave he added, 'One thing. I'll need a good signals officer. I will keep your sixth lieutenant.' 'Yes, sir.'

Herrick sighed. At least Pascoe would be spared. Although he suspected that Farquhar's was no mere gesture of confidence. More one to advertise his humanity in saving Pascoe from a wasted death.

He strode out beneath the poop and into the sunlight. The news of his leaving was already making itself shown. Glum faces, curious stares followed him as he strode towards the entry port. Perhaps they would miss him after all.

Outhwaite hurried along with him. 'I'll have all your gear and chests sent across, sir. Your cox'n is already in the barge.' He held out his hand. 'I doubt we'll meet again, sir. But I'd not have missed it.'

Herrick studied him, suddenly very calm. 'Nor I. It taught me a great deal. Which was intended.'

'It did, sir?' Outhwaite was surprised.

'Yes. About people. Mostly about myself.'

He touched his hat abruptly and walked to the open port.

Outhwaite waited until the boat had thrust away from the side and then snapped, 'Turn the hands to, Mr. Guthrie. We'll have no slackness.'

He thought of Herrick's face in those last few moments. He had half-expected to see humility but had found only pity. For him perhaps. When he glanced across the wide quarterdeck he was strangely troubled. It no longer seemed like the same place.

*

Herrick stood motionless by the open stern windows looking down into the swirling water below the counter. He could see the stars reflected there, and by leaning slightly over the sill he could also see the solitary lantern by his head and the line of bright windows from the wardroom below his feet. The ship was unusually quiet, as if holding her breath. There had only been one break in the stillness, and that had been when he had returned aboard, some two hours ago.

An unknown voice had begun it, and then, as if at a signal, and despite Gilchrist's anger, the ship had burst alive with cheering. The noise had drowned out the calls and the marine drummers completely, and even old Grubb had removed bis hat and had waved it in the air, his ruined face scarlet with his, ' 'Uzza, lads! The cap'n's come back!'

He walked away from the windows and glanced momentarily at the empty sword-rack on the bulkhead. Bolitho had been unwilling to take the sword with him. Ozzard had told him that. Perhaps he had foreseen something. A warning.

He sighed. Farquhar had kept his word, and the wording of Lysander's orders made it perfectly clear where the blame would he if Herrick acted wrongly. Herrick told himself that Farquhar was correct. That he would have done the same. But the doubt was there.

There was an uncertain tap on the door. It was Pascoe, his hat under his arm. Even in the light of a solitary lantern Herrick could see the strain on his face, the brightness in his eyes.

‘Yes?'

Pascoe said, 'Mr. Manning is come aboard, sir. He has a lady with him. They came to say goodbye to Captain Farquhar, as they are leaving for Gibraltar in Harebell as soon as a wind returns.'

Herrick nodded. There was no wind at all. And it added to the sense of brooding despair.

He said quietly, 'Tell Ozzard to bring more lanterns. Then show the visitors aft. I'll explain about Captain Farquhar.'

He thought of his orders again. Signed Acting-Commodore.

Pascoe said, 'I'd like to stay in Lysander, sir.'

'I know.' He faced him. 'But you must transfer to Osiris at first light tomorrow. It is probably for the best. I'd like to think you at least were here if...'

Pascoe asked, 'Are you going to Corfu just to show that you believe he is right, sir ?'

'Yes. It is all I can do now.'

He crossed to his side and added, 'Take care, Adam. A lot may depend on you now.'

Pascoe's eyes were wide. 'You speak as if he were already dead?'

'I'm not sure. Not any more.' Herrick looked around the quiet cabin. 'But I am certain of one thing. People in England who do not understand as we do will try to smear his name.

He swung away. 'Now bring those damned visitors aft.'

He heard Pascoe's footsteps retreating, and felt the pounding of his own heart matching them.

Light flooded around him as Ozzard hung fresh lanterns, and with a start he realised that Manning was in the cabin door, a lady in a dark boat cloak and hood at his side.

Manning said stiffly, 'I regret the intrusion, Captain. It now seems I have wasted time and effort and will have to take a boat to the Osiris'

Herrick tried to smile. But his face felt numb. 'I am sorry, Mr. Manning.' It was typical of Farquhar of course. 'I expect you would have been told of the new arrangements in the morning.'

Manning searched his face and replied dryly, 'Indeed, I would like to think so.'

To the lady, who had remained silent, he said, "We will go over to Osiris right away. I have some matters to discuss with Captain Farquhar before you leave.'

Herrick said, "There'll be no wind before dawn. You can rest assured of that.'

‘I see.' Manning seemed irritated. 'This is my sister, by the way, Mrs. Boswell.'

She threw back the hood of her cloak and gave a quick smile.

Manning continued, 'Better be off then.'

She said, 'I am sailing in the Harebell, Captain Herrick, but my brother is remaining in Sicily for the present.' She looked sadly at Manning. 'Though how the poor dear will manage, I cannot imagine.'

He glared at her and then snapped, 'Are you coming, Dulcie ?'

'No.' She walked further into the cabin, her boat cloak swishing behind her. 'I will have enough of cramped quarters and boats before I reach England again. And I have seen enough of Captain Farquhar anyway.' She gave Herrick a smile. 'I should like to remain here until you have finished your business, John. If the captain has no objections ?'

Herrick shook his head. 'No, Ma'am. My pleasure.'

She was a very pleasant looking woman, with the fresh cheeks and bright eyes of someone raised in the country. He wondered what she was doing out here. Perhaps her husband was like Manning, a man who served the King without wearing his coat.

Manning tutted and grunted and then said, 'Oh, very well. I'll be back in an hour.'

The silence closed in again, and Herrick felt as if he was too large to be in the cabin.

She watched him thoughtfully and then loosened her cloak before sitting easily in one of the chairs.

'So you are Captain Herrick. I have been hearing about you. One of your men told me you are sailing soon. I hope you have a safe voyage.'

Herrick looked at her, wanting to be left alone. Needing her to stay.

'Aye, Ma'am. There's plenty of talk in ships.' He changed the subject. 'I gather you are bound for England ?'

'Yes. We live in -' She dropped her eyes. "That is, my husband died two years ago. So I am returning to Canterbury. I have been dreading it in many ways. I came out to live with John. He has never married, poor lamb. But he insists that the war is getting closer each day.' She sighed. 'So home I must go.'

Herrick sat down opposite her. 'But, Ma'am, I come from Kent, too. My home is in Rochester.' He smiled awkwardly. 'Though I fear not as fine as yours will be.'

She watched him, her skin very pale under the-lamplight. 'That young officer who brought us to the cabin.' She lowered her eyes. ‘I couldn't help hearing what you said to him.'

Herrick flushed. 'Ma'am, I do apologise.' He recalled his anger. Bring these damned visitors aft. 'Had I realised.'

'No, Captain. Before that. You were deeply upset, as I believe that good-looking boy was, too.'

Herrick nodded slowly. 'He is the commodore's nephew. A fine young man.'

She said quietly, 'I've heard about your commodore. I was very distressed. I understand he was greatly liked.'

'Aye, Ma'am. None better. None braver.'" 'There's no hope ?'

'Not much. Your brother would have heard something by now.'

'Tell me about yourself, Captain. Do you have a family in England ?'

And that was how it all began. Herrick speaking his thoughts and memories aloud, while she sat quietly listening.

When someone cried a challenge and a boat surged alongside, Herrick could hardly believe an hour had passed so fast. He stood up anxiously.

'If I have bored you, Ma'am ...'

She patted his sleeve and smiled at him. ‘I should like to call upon your sister, if I may, Captain. It will help to keep us both cheerful until -' She fastened her cloak. 'Until you return to Kent again.' She looked up at his face, her gaze level. 'I hope you'll not forget us.'

Herrick grasped her hand. It was small and firm and made him feel all the clumsier.

'I'll not forget your kindness to me, Ma'am.' He heard Manning's voice drawing closer. 'I'd like to think we might meet again, but - '

'No buts, Captain.' She moved back from him. ‘I can now understand why your commodore is sadly missed. With friends such as you, he must have been a man indeed.'

Herrick followed her on to the quarterdeck where her brother was speaking with Major Leroux.

Pascoe called, 'Boat's ready, sir!'

Herrick said roughly, 'Go with this lady in the boat, Mr. Pascoe. My compliments to Commander Inch. Tell him to take good care of his passenger.'

She touched his arm. 'Inch? Another friend?'

'Aye.' Herrick guided her around the projecting humps of gun trucks and ring-bolts. 'You'll be in good hands.'

She moved her elbow gently in his grip. 'No better than now, I think.'

*

The nightmare was rising to another great climax. Leaping patterns of dark red, like solid flame, interspersed with cruder shapes, sometimes human, other times obscure and all the more frightening.

Bolitho wanted to get to his feet, to cry out, to escape the surging movement and encirclement. Once, against the molten banks of fire he saw a woman, deathly white, her arms beckoning him, her mouth calling silent words. When he had tried to reach her he realised that both his legs had gone, and a ship's surgeon was laughing at his rising terror.

All at once it was gone. Silence, and a darkness too unreal to accept, so that Bolitho felt himself drawing in his muscles and limbs to resist another terrible nightmare.

It was then that he realised he could feel his legs, his arms and the sweat which ran across his neck and thighs. Slowly, fearfully, like a man climbing back from the dead, he tried to assemble his thoughts, to separate reality from that which he had been enduring since ... he struggled on to his elbows, staring at the darkness. Since when?

As his senses returned he noticed a sluggish movement beneath him, the shudder and tilt of a vessel under way. Blocks and rigging creaked, and he felt a new sensation, that of dread. He remembered the return of the fever, the signs he had known were there but had refused to recognise. Allday's face above him, lined and anxious, hands carrying him, the enfolding darkness.

He groped up to his eyes and winced as his fingers touched them. He had gone completely blind.

A great slackness came over his limbs, so that he fell back on the bunk exhausted. Better to have died. To have sunk deeper into the haunting nightmares of fever until it had ended completely. He thought of the naked woman. Catherine Pareja. Trying to sustain him as she had done before when he had all but lost his life.

With a gasp he struggled up in a sitting position as a thin yellow line opened the opposite darkness like thread. Wider still, and then a face, unfamiliar against a lantern in the passageway beyond the door.

The face vanished and he heard someone yell, 'He's awake i He's going to be all right!'

The next few minutes were the worst in some ways. Allday cradling him against the vessel's motion, Lieutenant Veitch peering down at him, his face split into a wider grin than he had ever seen. Midshipman Breen's carrot head bobbing about in a sort of jig, and others crowding into the small cabin and giving vent to what sounded like a dozen different tongues.

Veitch ordered, 'Clear the cabin, lads.'

Allday made Bolitho he back, and said, 'Good to have you back with us, sir. God, you've had a bad time, and that's no error.'

Bolitho tried to speak but his tongue felt twice its proper size. He managed to croak, 'H-how long ?' He saw Veitch and Allday exchange quick glances and added, 'Must know!'

Veitch said quietly, 'All but three weeks, sir, since you - '

Bolitho tried to push Allday aside but was helpless. No wonder he felt weak and empty. Three weeks.

He whispered, 'What happened ?'

Veitch said, 'After we got you back aboard we thought it better to stay at anchor in Valletta. It seemed safe enough, and I was troubled, fearful, if you like, of taking you to sea as you were.'

Allday stood up slowly, his head bowed between the beams. 'I've never seen you so bad, sir.' He sounded exhausted. 'We was at our wits' ends as to what to do.'

Bolitho looked from one to the other, some of his anxiety giving way to warmth. For three weeks, while he had been helpless and confined in his own private torment, these others had fended as best they could. Had nursed him, without caring for themselves, or what delay might cost them. As his eyes grew accustomed to the yellow light he saw the deep shadows around Allday's face, the stubble on his chin. Veitch, too, looked worn out, like a prisoner from the hulks.

He said, 'I was thinking only of myself.' He reached out. 'Take my hands, Both of you.'

Allday's teeth were white in his tanned face. 'Bless him, Mr. Veitch, he must be feeling a mite better.' But he had to look away, at a rare loss for words.

Bolitho said, 'Tell me again. I will try to be patient and not interrupt.'

It was a strange tale which Veitch and Allday shared. Strange because it represented part of his life which he had missed. Which now he could never regain.

Witliin a day of his return aboard an official had come alongside and ordered them to remain at anchor until all risk of fever had gone. Veitch had been worried at Bolitho's desperate condition, but had not missed the fact that two of his seamen had deserted. A coincidence? He could not be sure. But from that moment he had made plans for leaving harbour before some unbreakable restriction was placed upon them. For several days the Segura had remained apparently unheeded, a warning yellow flag at her masthead, while the morale of her small company had crumbled and stores had run lower and lower.

As he listened to their story, Bolitho wondered if the French agent, Yves Gorse, had received some word that Segura's crew were impostors. By having them held at anchor he may have done his best to delay them while he sent word elsewhere that the enemies of France were no longer at Gibraltar or off Toulon, but inside Malta. He could, after all, do little else without revealing his own role as a foreign spy.

Allday took up the story. 'Two sentries came aboard next. Mr. Plowman suggested that it was the best time to leave. Others on shore would drop their guard once responsibility was shifted.'

Bolitho managed to smile. Plowman, if he was an ex-slaver, would certainly know about such matters.

"There was a squall one night. Sharp and fierce, an' not too much in our favour. But it was then or not at all, Mr. Plowman said, so we cuts the cable and makes sail.'

'The sentries ?'

Allday grinned. 'We met with a Genoese trader two days later and we put 'em aboard her.' He became serious again. 'It was a good thing. By speaking with the trader we heard that a French man o' war was nearby. A corvette, by the description. Looking for us, waiting to contact the agent in Malta, we don't know.' He patted the crumpled bunk and added quietly, 'We had more important things to attend to.'

Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair. 'Bring more light. I must get up. But why three weeks ?'

'We've been lying up in a little bay to the south'rd of Sicily. The squall, which damn near flung us back into Valletta, was a hard one, but it was gone again in no time.' Veitch could not suppress a great yawn. 'So we anchored and did what we could. I think you nearly died, sir.'

Breen entered the cabin with another lantern. Unlike the others, he was able to walk upright.

Bolitho swung his legs to the deck and allowed Allday to help him to a broken mirror on the bulkhead. He studied the hollows in his cheeks, the feverish stare, the filthy stains on his shirt.

He said, 'I'll not tell you what you should have done.'

Veitch shrugged. 'We did not know what had passed between you and the Frenchman, sir.' He added grimly, 'But in any case, I'd have made the same decision. Your life would have come first.'

Bolitho studied Veitch in the mirror. 'Thank you for that.'

Allday said, 'We sighted the corvette a couple of times, but she didn't come near our little anchorage.' He watched Bolitho's worn features and explained, 'As it is, sir, we're now under way and steering north for Syracuse. Mr. Veitch said that with all the calms we've been having, it was best to sail at night. This old barrico is no match for a Frog corvette!'

'I see.'

He rubbed his chin and despised himself for his sudden thought. A shave and a bath seemed more precious than anything.

Allday continued, 'Yesterday morning it was. I was forcing some brandy into your mouth and you spoke to me. I think we knew then that we must quit the bay. A proper surgeon is what you need now.'

Bolitho grimaced. 'The squadron will have sailed long since. Even without my new information, Farquhar will have weighed.'

Veitch asked, 'You were right then, sir ?'

'I think we all knew, Mr. Veitch.' He recalled the cool wine store, the sweat on his back changing from fire to ice. 'Gorse hinted that the French will seize Malta on their way to Egypt.'

'I'm not surprised, sir.' Veitch sounded weary. 'From what I saw in Malta, most of the defences have been allowed to fall into ruin.'

'With Malta taken, and a goodly supply of weapons and stores for a full scale invasion building up in Corfu, the French have nothing to stop them.' He gave a tired smile. 'So we must send word to the admiral. In this wretched vessel, if necessary.'

Veitch walked to the door. 'It will be dawn in an hour, sir.

He paused by the door. 'I must relieve Mr. Plowman, sir.'

Allday waited until the door was closed and then said, 'He has the makings of a good officer, sir.'

'You think that?'

'Aye.' Allday helped him to a chair. 'He is better tempered than some.'

Bolitho watched him, content to remain where he was, despite all the urgency at the back of his mind. He could tell merely by watching Allday what the days and the weeks had cost him. He could not have slept for more than minutes at a time.

Allday said brightly, 'I washed a Don shirt that I found in a locker, and Larssen cleaned up your breeches.' He turned into the lantern light, a razor in his hand. 'So now, sir, we'll make you a bit more presentable, shall we ?'

Later, as a pink glow showed itself through the filthy cabin skylight, Bolitho stood up in his Spanish shirt and examined himself in the mirror.

Allday was wiping his razor on part of a flag. 'You know, sir, and I know, but the lads will think you're just as you were.'

The razor froze in mid-air as a voice called, 'Deck thar! Sail on th' weather bow!'

Allday reached out and gripped his arm. 'Easy now, sir I Mr. Veitch is able to manage!'

Bolitho looked at him gravely. 'Mr. Veitch has been made to manage for too long. And so have you.' He fought against the ringing in his ears. 'Help me on deck.'

For such a small vessel it seemed a vast distance to the poop.

The sea looked very calm, and the hint of sunrist gave the water a strange pink hue, beyond which the vague humps of land seemed ugly. Bolitho seized the rail and sucked in great gulps of air. After the cabin it was like wine. He looked up at the loosely flapping sails. Barely enough wind to hold them on course. He nodded to Veitch and Plowman, not daring to trust his voice or his breath. When the sun showed itself in earnest he would see the Sicilian coastline across the larboard bulwark more clearly, be able to fix their position.

He stiffened as the pink light touched a small square of sail, far away across the larboard bow. The uncertain light made it seem a great distance off, but soon she would cut the range down as if by magic.

He turned and looked at Veitch. 'One of ours perhaps ?'

Veitch closed his class with a snap. 'No, sir. It's that same damned corvette again!'

Bolitho sensed the bitter despair in his voice. After all he and the others had done, the corvette was still with them. Standing like a pike between a helpless duckling and the nearest reeds.

He thought of Segura's armament and dismissed it. Two or three swivels and the men's own muskets. It only made the comparison more cruel.

He snapped, 'How far from the land are we?' He was surprised by the strength in his voice.

'Two leagues, sir. No more by my reckonin'.' Plowman regarded him doubtfully. 'The water's very deep hereabouts, and I'd hoped to run closer inshore, but for the bloody wind, beggin' your pardon, sir!'

He wished he could pace up and down and gather his thoughts, but knew his strength would fail instantly.

Six miles out. It might as well be six hundred.

He heard Breen say shakily, 'With all that powder stored below, we'll blow to dust at the first shot!'

Bolitho turned and looked at him. 'Well said, Mr. Breen!' He lurched to the wheel and held on to it. 'Allday, have the boat lowered.'

'It is, sir.' Allday peered at him anxiously through the pink gloom. 'Towing below the counter.'

'Good, good.' He had to keep talking, to stop the dizziness returning. 'Rig a mast and sails in her and warp her around to the lee side, so that the Frenchman won't see her.'

Veitch exclaimed, 'We'd never outrun a corvette, sir.'

'Don't intend to.' He bared his teeth, pretending to grin. 'Make up a long fuse and set it to the powder hold.' He saw Veitch's disbelief but hurried on, 'We'll let the corvette grapple us, and then bear away in the longboat.'

Plowman cleared his throat. 'But suppose the Frogs don't grapple, sir? They might send a boardin' party instead.' He looked meaningly at Veitch, as if to indicate that he thought the fever was still controlling Bolitho as before.

Bolitho took the glass from his hand and trained it across the rail. The French corvette was much sharper already. She had the wind-gage and was setting her topgallants to take full advantage of it.

He returned the glass and said slowly, 'We shall have to wait and see, Mr. Plowman. Now get that fuse, and be sharp about it.'

As Allday made to leave he caught his arm and asked, 'When I called out during the fever. Did I ask for anyone?'

'Yes, sir.' Allday looked towards the sunrise. 'You called for Cheney, sir. Your wife.'

Bolitho nodded. 'Thank you.'

Midshipman Breen hurried after Allday and whispered nervously, 'But is not the commodore's wife dead ?'

'Aye.' He paused above the bobbing longboat and looked towards Bolitho by the wheel. 'An' more's the pity for it.'

13 Pursuit

Bolitho crouched over the Segura's flaking companion hatch and scribbled hastily on a small piece of paper. He was aware of the strengthening light, a hint of warmth after the first dawn air, but forced his mind to concentrate. Every so often he had to pause and gather his strength for fear that the fever was returning.

Once, when he half rose to peer above the larboard bulwark he saw the French corvette's yards and sails edging round, her slender jib boom displaying her intention to run down her quarry on a simple converging tack.

Not much more than a mile separated the smart man-of-war and the badly-used Segura.

Bolitho folded the paper carefully and moved to Veitch's side. 'Take this with you.' He slipped it into the lieutenant's pocket. 'It tells all I know.' Suspect was more the word. 'So, if I fall, you must get this message to higher authority as best you can.'

Plowman called hoarsely, 'The Frenchie's shortenin' sail, sir.'

Veitch nodded. 'He'll be up to us very soon now.'

Bolitho ran his eye along the deck. It was tilting even less now, and with the light airs barely able to fill each sail, his plan was decided. If there had ever been any choice, he thought grimly.

Allday came aft. 'Fuse set and ready, sir. Should give us a quarter-hour.'

Bolitho trained a telescope on the corvette. 'Too long. Cut it as close as you dare. Five minutes.'

He heard them gasp but watched the French ship drawing nearer, her sails braced round to retain the wind, showing her bilge in the strengthening sunlight as she heeled jauntily on her new tack,

Plowman remarked, 'Look at 'er copper. She's not long out of port!'

Bolitho felt a shiver of excitement. One of de Brueys's vessels perhaps ? Part of a scattered line of scouts which in turn would lead the admiral's mighty fleet into open seas and to Egypt. He thought of all the information, certain and hearsay, and knew it represented far more than the solitary corvette which was blocking their path to safety. Like a great colossus, de Brueys's fleet of transports and ships of the line would stride via Malta, using it as a stepping-stone, before setting down again on the Egyptian shore. And thence to India, and all the trade and possessions which England had so nearly lost in that other war.

He said, 'Get the hands into the boat, if you please.'

He waited, expecting further argument from Veitch or Plowman.

The lieutenant merely said, 'I'll not cast off without you, sir. And that's my last word on it.'

Bolitho smiled. 'You'd disobey your commodore, Mr. Veitch? In time of war it could hang you!'

They both laughed, and Veitch answered, 'A risk I'll take, sir.'

The seamen were already scrambling over the lee bulwark, and Bolitho hoped that nobody aboard the French ship had noticed anything unusual. After all, there was little point in trying to outpace a man-of-war as lively as a corvette. And to attempt an escape in a longboat, with the Mediterranean and not dry land across the bows, was a measure of madness.

Allday came aft again, breathing heavily. 'Fuse ready, sir.' He squinted at the other vessel. Three guns had been run out. Small six-pounders, they would be enough for the elderly Segura, even without her lethal cargo. He added, ^‘There's just us left.' He gestured to the wheel. 'And this mad Swede.'

Larssen grinned, his face as devoid of fear as a child's. 'Aye, so I am, sir!'

There was a sharp crack, and as they turned to see a puff of smoke from the corvette's side, a single ball ripped through the fore-rigging and threw up a thin waterspout, away on the starboard quarter.

Bolitho gave a quiet smile. 'Signal received and understood.' He nodded to Allday. 'Get forrard, and start shouting at your invisible crew.'

He knew that the French captain must be watching Segura and probably himself. He darted a quick glance at the longboat, as the bows and then the rest of it slewed awkwardly away from the lee side, every inch of it filled with men and oars, and the jumble of mast and canvas which Veitch was preparing to raise.

Bolitho took the spokes and said, 'Hoist the flag, Larssen.'

The Swede grinned, and moments later the American colours broke once again from the gaff.

It brought an instant response in another sharp explosion, and this time the six-pound ball smashed into Segura's hull, shaking her violently like a great hammer.

Bolitho had not expected the corvette to be fooled. But it all took time, and from one corner of his eye he saw Veitch waving his hat back and forth to show that he was ready.

There was a thump from forward, and he watched Allday jump clear with an axe as the tanned jib sail came crashing down around him in a flailing heap. It seemed to satisfy the Frenchman, for her captain was already bringing her round to run almost parallel, keeping Segura to leeward, while her men shortened sail yet again in readiness to drive alongside. Sailors were clambering into the shrouds with grapnels, and there was a glint of metal as a boarding party ran smartly towards the forecastle for the first contact.

Bolitho felt the wheel bucking in his hands, as deprived of her jib, Segura idled heavily, her sails in trembling agitation.

'Light the fuse!'

He heard Allday dash below, and then handed the wheel back to the Swede. He saw a seaman on the corvette's main-yard pointing and gesticulating, and guessed he had seen the longboat and was trying to yell his information to the poop above the din of sails and blocks, of shouting men, eager for a fight, even a one-sided one.

Bolitho made himself remain beside the wheel. If he ran too soon, the Frenchman would still be able to sheer away. He thought of the hissing fuse below decks, and hoped Allday had not been too exhausted to estimate the proper length.

'Fuse burning!'

Allday was covered in wisps of hay, as if he had just fought his way out of a farmyard stack. He had probably taken the fuse clear of the stored fodder in the other hold to avoid a premature explosion.

'Stand by the boat's sternrope!' He waited until Allday was at the bulwark with his axe. 'You, too, Larssen, move smartly now!' He saw a shadow by his feet and then looked up at the American flag. He grimaced and said, 'I've dirtied that flag enough for one day, I'll cut it down.' But when he groped for his sword he realised that in all the excitement and his return from feverish oblivion he had forgotten to bring it on deck.

A musket barked across the fast-narrowing strip of water, and he heard the ball smack into the opposite bulwark. The French boarders were all yelling now, baying like enraged hounds at the thought of their enemy trying to escape.

Allday saw Bolitho's expression and thrust his axe into the seaman's hand. 'Hold this! I'm going for the sword!'

Bolitho yelled, 'Leave it!'

Another ball zipped past him, and then a whole fusilade of shots which threw splinters from the deck like darts and ricocheted in every direction.

Bolitho heard Larssen cry out, and saw him sag to his knees, his eyes tightly closed as he tried to stem the blood which ran freely from his thigh.

Bolitho controlled his racing thoughts, tried not to see the fuse in his mind. Five minutes. It must have been burning that long already.

He dragged the seaman against the bulwark and heard Allday panting across the deck to join him.

He gasped, 'Hold him! We'll jump together!'

Then they were up on the bulwark, the wood still misty from the night air, and as Allday cut the boat's long line the three of them fell like untidy bundles into the water, the severed rope wrapped around them.

Down and down, the sunlight fading through a pink mist, which Bolitho's reeling mind told him must be Larssen's blood, and all the while he could feel the rope dragging like a snare, and knew Veitch's crew were pulling at their oars like madmen. Despite all which was happening, he found he was thinking of the two men who had deserted at Malta. They would never know how fortunate their crime was at this moment. Had they remained aboard, it was doubtful if there would have been room for them in the one remaining boat, nor space to pull an oar.

He saw the water brightening over his head, and as he broke surface, shaking hair from his eyes and gasping for breath, he caught sight of the longboat, its sail hoisted, and several figures waving and maybe cheering towards him.

Larssen had fainted, and it was all he and Allday could do to hold his face above water, and at the same time cling to the boat's sternrope which was being hauled hand-over-hand against the pressure of oars, sail and the drag of undertow around their legs.

Allday gasped, 'By God, I'd not want to do this very often!'

Bolitho turned his head to speak and then felt his ears cringe as a deafening explosion tore the morning apart. He felt the shock-wave surge against his legs and chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and twisting the three of them round in the trailing rope like helpless puppets.

Fragments of wood and cordage, huge yellow-coloured bundles of hay rained around them. A whole section of timber plunged straight down beside Allday, only to shoot up again like a jagged battering-ram, missing him by inches.

Allday croaked, 'Jesus! That was a near thing!'

Bolitho managed to pivot himself, treading water as the deluge of shattered pieces subsided, and peered back at the two ships. In fact, there was only one, Segura having vanished completely, leaving a great widening circle of froth and bubbles, flotsam and scattered fodder, which would never feed French cavalry now.

It was as if the Segura had bled to death even as she plunged to the bottom, for the froth which continued to swirl around in Confusion was tinged with red. Every cask of wine must have burst apart with the gunpowder.

The corvette was in a bad way. At first glance he had imagined that she had escaped the worst of the explosion, but as she swung unsteadily across the disturbed water he saw the weak sunlight play over a deep rent in her hull where her copper had been slit open like the belly of a shark. Her rigging and sails were in shreds, swaying like creeper as the hull tilted more steeply, hiding the hole in the side as the sea surged into her. Why she had not caught fire was a miracle, but Bolitho knew her captain would be hard put to save his surviving men, let alone prevent his command from following Segura.

A shadow loomed above him, and he felt hands under his armpits, others reaching down to lift the inert Swede to safety.

Veitch watched him, grinning, as he was hauled unceremoniously inboard with Allday.

'You see, sir, I waited'

Bolitho lay back and stared at the sky. 'It was close.'

Allday was wringing out his shirt across the gunwale. 'I gave the fuse ten minutes, sir. Otherwise .. .' He said no more.

Bolitho turned to look at him, his chest heaving painfully. He saw the weals across Allday's back where the mounted trooper had used his whip. They were still very red, and would never vanish completely. He felt strangely sad about that. Allday had served at sea for most of his life and had avoided the lash throughout that time. In the Navy-it was no mean feat. And now, because of his courage and unwavering loyalty, he would wear those stripes to the end of his days.

Impetuously, he reached out and touched Allday's shoulder.

'It was well done. And I am sorry about these.'

Allday twisted round on the thwart and looked at him. 'Still a long way to go to catch up with you, sir.' He grinned, the tiredness, or some of it, fading. 'I reckon you've got more scars than a cat's got lives’

Bolitho smiled, sharing the moment only with Allday. 'But none more honourable, my friend.'

Veitch cleared his throat. 'Where now, sir?'

Bolitho struggled against the gunwale, watching the listless sail, and then turning to study the corvette. Someone fired a musket, and a seaman in the boat stood up to jeer.

Bolitho said quietly, 'Easy, lads. I know how you feel. But it was not fired at us that time. The corvette's people are trying to rush the boats.'

He looked at Veitch, seeing the slow understanding. A few officers, a terrified crew. It had happened to Bolitho, it was something which Veitch might never experience, if he was lucky.

'She's goin' ‘

The little corvette was beginning to turn turtle, her decks bared as she tilted towards the silent watchers. White feathers of spray showed where fragments from the explosion were falling from her masts, and a six-pounder cannon tore loose from the upended side and charged through the other bulwark, taking a handful of struggling figures with it.

Across the blue water they could hear the faint cries and screams, the jubilant roar of inrushing water. The masts hit the surface almost together, smashing amongst some swimmers and cutting the one successfully launched boat in halves.

Plowman said roughly, 'Nuthin' we can do for 'em, sir.'

Bolitho did not answer. The master's mate was right of course. The boat would be swamped, or at best his men would be taken prisoner by the overwhelming number of French survivors. To know it was one thing. To merely accept it was another.

He heard Midshipman Breen sniffing loudly, and when he glanced along the boat he saw he was perched on a cask, the Swedish seaman, Larssen, cradled against his lap.

Plowman climbed across the other men and asked, 'What is it?'

The boy stared aft at Bolitho and murmured, 'He's dead, sir.'

Allday said, 'Poor fellow.' He sighed. 'Put him over, lads.'

But the midshipman clung to the man's body, his eyes still on Bolitho. 'B-but, sir, couldn't, shouldn't we say something for him?' His freckled face was streaming with tears, and in the boat he alone seemed totally unaware of the sinking ship nearby, of anything but the man who just died beside him.

Bolitho nodded slowly. 'You do it, Mr. Breen.'

He turned to watch Veitch, hearing Breen's high-pitched, wavering words as he stumbled through a prayer he had learned, probably from his mother. Nearby, he noticed that one of the seamen, a tough, experienced gun captain, had removed his neckerchief which he had been wearing over his head in readiness for the sun.

He said quietly, 'It is a hard lesson, Mr. Veitch.'

'Aye.' The lieutenant touched his arm, but gently, as if afraid of disturbing Breen's words. 'There she goes!'

The corvette was slipping beneath the water, and already some of the survivors still afloat were swimming purposefully towards Segura's longboat.

There was a splash, and Bolitho saw Larssen's face, very pale and misty below the surface as his body drifted clear of the side.

'Out oars! Stand by!'

A man in the bow yelled, 'God damn them! Here comes another!'

Out of the land's shadow and morning mist, a small rectangle of pale canvas showed itself with sudden brightness in the sunlight. Some of the Frenchmen who were clinging to pieces of wreckage and broken spars raised a cheer, while in the longboat there was no sound at all.

Bolitho snatched the brass telescope from the bottom-boards and trained it on the other vessel. She might stop to pick up survivors. A wind might rise in time to save them.

He felt his mouth go dry. Then he said, 'Rest easy, lads! She's the Harebell’

With what wind remained held firmly under his coat tails, Inch brought the sloop steadily towards them, his boats already swayed out ready for launching.

The corvette had practically gone now, and only her stern section, complete with its tricolour, was still visible.

Bolitho watched Harebell turning into the wind, the boats dropping alongside as she idled close to the nearest cluster of swimmers. A jolly boat was speeding towards them now, and a young lieutenant stood up to hail, his face red with anger.

'God damn you for a coward, M'sieu’ Leaving your people to drown while you have a boat!'

The boat surged closer, and Allday cupped his hands, barely able to restrain his huge grin.

'Is that the way you always greet your commodore? Attention in that boat, I say!'

While hands reached out to draw the two hulls together, and Bolitho clambered across to join the blushing lieutenant, he said calmly, 'A few moments ago, I had a ship, too, Mr. McLean.' He patted his arm. 'But I can understand how it looked.'

By the time they had reached the sloop's side, Bolitho could see what excitement his appearance had caused. The embarrassed Lieutenant McLean had already explained that Harebell was on her way to Gibraltar with despatches for the admiral. Commander Inch, it appeared, was making a longer passage than he should have done, just in case he might have sighted the Segura. McLean left Bolitho in no doubt that it was just a brave gesture, and that hope had long since been given up.

Bolitho hauled himself up the side and was greeted by a beaming Inch, whose voice was completely drowned by cheering sailors. He wrung Bolitho's hand, his long horseface shining with pleasure and relief, while others pushed forward to pound their returned commodore on the shoulders.

Veitch said harshly, 'The commodore was near dead with fever. I fear he'll die of bruises in a minute, sir!'

Inch led Bolitho aft, bobbing with excitement. Bolitho realised with surprise that there was a woman in the small cabin, and she, too, seemed as overcome as Inch.

Inch said, 'This is Mrs. Boswell, sir. On passage for England. I am to take her to Gibraltar with me.'

Bolitho nodded to her. 'I must apologise for all this, Ma'am.' He looked meaningly at Inch. 'We will return to Syracuse with all speed.'

'Yes, of course I understand.' She dabbed at her eyes.

Bolitho asked, 'Well, Commander Inch, tell me everything. Is all the squadron still at anchor then?'

Some of Inch's pleasure seemed to fade. 'All but Lysander and Buzzard, sir. Javal is away on his own mission, but Lysander has gone, I am told, to Corfu.'

Bohtho sat down and plucked at his frilled Spanish shirt. 'So Captain Farquhar intends to use his own initiative, eh?'

Inch looked uncomfortable, even wretched. 'No, sir. Captain Herrick has been given Lysander. Sir Charles Farquhar, as he now is, commands the squadron in Syracuse. He intends to wait there.' He wavered under Bolitho's grim stare. 'Until a fleet comes under the flag of Sir Horatio Nelson.'

Bolitho stood up, ducking beneath the beams, until he had reached the open stern windows.

Herrick had gone. Alone. The rest was as clear as the water below the transom.

He heard the woman say, 'He is a good man, I met him before he sailed.'

Bolitho turned towards her. 'He is, Ma'am.'

Inch said, 'When we heard the explosion we thought some great vessel had blown up.'

'Segura's cargo. We had to rejoin the squadron. That corvette thought otherwise.'

He recalled the midshipman's face, the Swede's cheerful acceptance of orders he sometimes did not even understand. Allday's scarred back.

He added harshly, 'So rejoin it we will, and as fast as you can manage!'

The Harebell's first lieutenant appeared in the doorway, his eyes avoiding Bolitho as he reported, 'We have picked up thirty Frenchmen, sir. The captain was not one of them.'

He said as an afterthought, 'The master says that the wind is a piece stronger and has backed further to the sou'-west.'

Inch nodded, his long face set in a frown. To Bolitho he said, 'I believe you have met Mr. McLean, my senior, sir ?'

Bolitho smiled gravely. 'Indeed. I had met him before when he came aboard Lysander with you on one occasion. It seems that the Navy is unchanged. Whereas lieutenants never remember their superiors, even commodores can recognise their lieutenants'

Inch glared at the lieutenant. 'Call all hands and make sail. It will be hard work, but I want Harebell at her anchor by mid-afternoon!'

Bolitho sat down again, his limbs suddenly weak.

Inch said, 'I will go on deck, if I may.' He hesitated. 'I am indeed glad to be the one to find you, sir. Captain Herrick would have been pleased if -' He hurried from the cabin.

The woman said quietly, 'We spoke for a long time. I found Captain Herrick's story, his life, quite fascinating.'

Bolitho studied her for the first time. She was a pleasant looking woman, probably in her early thirties. She had a nice skin, and dark brown eyes to match her hair. It was all there in the way she had spoken of Herrick. Love denied. Love still to offer, perhaps.

He replied, 'I intend to find him, Ma'am. When I have spoken with Captain Farquhar I hope to know a great deal more than I do now!'

He had spoken with unusual sharpness, and she said, 'I think that Captain Farquhar is a man with great ambition.'

He smiled, liking her and her quick appreciation.

'Superior ambition does not necessarily breed superior ability, Ma'am. I should have known that earlier. Much earlier. I pray to God I've not learned the lesson too late.'

Her hand moved to her neck. 'For Captain Herrick ?'

'For Thomas, and a whole lot more, Ma'am.'

Allday peered through the door. 'Could you get him to lay down, Ma'am? He's done enough for a regiment today.'

She nodded. 'I will.' As Allday withdrew she asked, 'Is he one of your contemporaries ?'

Bolitho lay back in the chair and shook his head, feeling the strain fading with his strength.

'No. He is my coxswain, and a good friend. But as a contemporary I fear he would soon be my superior. And that would be too much.'

She watched his eyelids droop, his head loll to the sloop's easy motion.

Bolitho was not quite as she had expected from what Herrick had told her. He seemed younger, for one who had carried so many, and who had experienced so much. Sensitive, too, something he obviously regarded as a flaw, and tried to hide with sternness.

She smiled. She was quite wrong. He was exactly as Herrick had described.

*

Farquhar stood quite still by the cabin screen, watching while Bolitho read carefully through the admiral's despatches.

Bolitho sat on the bench seat, the papers spread on the deck between his feet while he leaned above them, his elbows resting on his knees. On the seat beside him was a piece of fresh bread and a crock of butter which Manning had sent aboard that morning. Bolitho had eaten almost a whole loaf, liberally smeared with butter, and had washed it down with, to Farquhar's estimation, seven cups of coffee.

Bolitho looked up, his eyes searching. 'And you were going to remain here, were you?' He tapped the scattered papers. 'Did this mean nothing to you?'

Farquhar faced him calmly. 'If my assessment of the situation was different from yours, sir, then - '

Bolitho stood up, his eyes blazing. 'Don't make speeches to me, Captain Farquhar! You read these despatches, the findings in the report on the artillery we captured, yet you saw nothing!’ He stooped and snatched up two sheets of paper and thrust them on the table in a single movement. 'Read it! These cannon are forty-five-pounders. The military tested' one, although to them it was probably unnecessary.' He tapped the table in time to his words. 'It can fire a forty-five-pound ball over five thousand yards. If you rate that unimportant, then you must be a fool! How far does the biggest gun in the fleet fire ?' He strode to the quarter windows, his voice bitter. 'Let me refresh your memory. A thirty-two-pounder can reach three thousand yards. With luck, and a good gun captain.'

Farquhar retorted angrily, 'I do not see what that has to do with us, sir.'

'No, that is quite obvious.' He turned to face him. 'The French people expect a great victory. After their bloody revolution they may well demand such matters. And so to conquer Egypt, and reach far beyond, their fleet must first command the sea. Once safely beneath the protection of artillery such as these great cannon, the French could anchor an armada, several armadas, and know that there was not an English ship which could not be pounded to boxwood before she could grapple with them!'

Farquhar bit his Up. 'Coastal batteries.'

'At last, Captain.' Bolitho looked at him coldly. 'The pieces begin to fit for you also.'

There was a tap at the door and the sentry bawled, 'Officer of the watch, sir!'

Farquhar said, 'Pass him in.' He was probably relieved at the interruption.

The lieutenant stood just inside the door. 'We have just sighted Buzzard, sir. Coming from the north.'

'Thank you, Mr. Guthrie.'

Bolitho sat down and massaged his eyes. 'Get my clerk. I will dictate a despatch for Inch to carry to Gibraltar.' He could not hide his anger. 'Somewhat different from yours.'

Farquhar was expressionless. 'I will send for my clerk, sir. I am afraid yours is still in Lysander.'

'He will suffice for the present.' He walked to the door. 'I will get mine back when I recover my flagship.'

Farquhar stared after him. 'But I have had your broad pendant hoisted aboard Osiris, sir!'

'So I see.' He smiled gravely. 'Yours or mine? Were you that sure I was dead ?'

He walked to the companion without waiting for an answer.

He found Mrs. Boswell on the poop talking with Pascoe. Seeing his nephew had brought home to him how desperately he needed to find Herrick, how much they needed each other.

If he understood Herrick too well, it was his own fault. Probably more so than Herrick's. He had been searching for something different in Farquhar, when Herrick's real value was so obvious that neither of them had seen it.

The woman turned and smiled shyly. 'I came over in the boat to say goodbye, Commodore.' She slipped her hand through Pascoe's arm. 'We have been getting along very well.'

Bolitho nodded. 'I'm certain of it.' He saw through her cheerful tone and added, 'As soon as I have met with Buzzard's captain I will order the squadron, or what is left of it, to weigh.'

She understood and walked with him to the poop ladder. ‘I will leave you now. I am glad you are recovered. I know something of medicine, as fever killed my late husband. It is always hotter in these climates aboard ship than on the shore. In Sicily it has been quite cool until these last weeks.' She faced him sadly. 'If your men had left you in Malta, or worse, taken you ashore where you anchored, I fear you would have perished.'

A boat was waiting at the chains, and Bolitho saw the Osiris's froglike first lieutenant peering impatiently from the entry port.

He said quietly, ‘I have one piece of advice, Mrs. Boswell.' He guided her across the sun-warmed deck, oblivious to watching eyes and his own strange appearance. 'If you feel something for Thomas Herrick, I beg you to speak it.' He felt her tense as if to pull away from his hand.

But instead she asked, 'Is it so obvious ?'

'There is nothing wrong in that.' He looked away towards the green slopes of land. 'My own love was too short, and I begrudge every second of it which was wasted. Also,' he forced a smile, ‘I know that if you say naught, Thomas will remain as tongue-tied as a nun in a room full of sailors!'

She looked at Pascoe. 'Take care of yourselves. I have the strangest feeling that something great is about to happen.' She shivered. 'I am not sure I like it.'

Bolitho watched her being lowered into the boat by boatswain's chair, and then strode aft to watch Buzzard's topsails edging slowly, so painfully slowly, around the northern headland.

Pascoe said, 'A nice lady, sir. A bit like Aunt Nancy.'

'Aye.' Bolitho thought of his sister in Falmouth, and her pompous husband. He had always been very close to Nancy, who, though younger than he, had always tried to 'mother' him.

Pascoe continued, 'They say that Nelson is coming to the Mediterranean, sir?'

'I'm thankful that somebody at last believes there is a real threat here. The battle, and battle there will be, may be decisive. Which is why we have work to do before that day dawns.'

He saw Pascoe's face and smiled. 'What's the matter, Adam ? Don't you want Nelson to come ? He is the best we have, and the youngest. That alone should please you!’

Pascoe dropped his gaze and smiled. 'One of the fore-topmen said it for me. We've got our own Nelson already.'

'I never heard such nonsense!' Bolitho made for the ladder, adding, 'You're getting as bad as that cox'n of mine!'

That night as Bolitho sat in Osiris's unfamiliar cabin, writing his report on his conclusions, he listened to the creak and mutter of the hull around him. The wind was rising slightly, and had already veered more to the north-west. The sloop Harebell, which had set sail just before darkness, would be making heavy going, tacking back and forth, back and forth, merely to stay in the same place.

He thought of Javal's swarthy face as he had come aboard, surprised at seeing the broad pendant above Osiris, relieved to discover that Farquhar was not yet the commodore.

He had explained bluntly that after failing to discover the ships at the pre-arranged rendezvous, and hearing from a fisherman that they were at anchor in Syracuse, he had made a second patrol of the Messina Strait, and with the wind backing, had gone farther north in search of news. He had explained, 'I make no excuses, sir. I'm used to independence, but I don't abuse it. I put into Naples and visited the British Minister there. I had to come back with something.' His hard face had eased slightly. 'Had I known that you were off on your own, er, expedition, sir, I'd have sailed right into Valletta and brought you out, Knights or not!'

Javal knew his weak spot. As an ex-frigate captain, Bolitho had acted rashly by going to see Yves Gorse, but in keeping with his old calling. Perhaps Javal had used the point to dilute his own guilt.

Javal had explained, 'Sir William Hamilton may be old, sir, but he has a vast knowledge of affairs, and the communications to inform him.'

Bolitho signed his report and stared at the opposite bulkhead. His tarnished sword looked out of place against the ornate panelling.

Javal had delivered only one piece of news. To be more precise, he had brought a name.

Sir William had been informed through his chain of associates and spies that the one man who could determine the next weeks and months was known to be making for Toulon. That man would not be prepared to waste time on empty gestures.

His name was Bonaparte.

14 Run to Earth

Any hopes of a quick passage to Corfu, or of Javal's lookouts sighting Lysander far ahead of the depleted squadron, were dashed within days of weighing anchor. The wind veered violently to the north, and as all hands worked feverishly to shorten sail, even Osiris's master expressed his surprise at the intensity and speed of the change. Swooping down from the Adriatic, the wind transformed the gentle blue swell into a waste of steep, savage crests, while above the staggering mastheads the sky became one unbroken cloud bank.

Day after day, the two ships of the line used their bulk and strength to ride out the storm, while behind shuttered gun ports their companies fought their own battles against the sickening motion, and waited for the call, All hands! Hands aloft and reef tops'ls I' Then to a more perilous contest against the wind, clinging to dizzily swaying yards and fighting each murderous foot of canvas.

Buzzard, unable to withstand such a battering, had been made to run ahead of the storm, so that to the remaining ships it seemed as if the whole world was confined to this small arena of noise and drenching seas. For the visibility dropped with the hours, and it was hard to tell spray from rain, or from which direction the wind would attack next.

For Bolitho, the endless days made him feel remote from Osiris's own struggle. The faces he met whenever he went on deck were unfamiliar, shouted opinions as yet carried no weight. He saw Farquhar in a different light as well. Several times he had given way to displays of anger which had made even the urbane Outhwaite quail, and once he had reprimanded a bosun's mate for not striking a man hard enough when he protested at being sent aloft in a full gale. The bosun's mate had tried to explain that the culprit was not a proper seaman, but a cooper's assistant. So many hands had been hurt in the storm that, like the officers, the bosun's mate was trying to gather as much extra muscle as he could.

Farquhar had shouted, 'Don't you dare argue I You've had to flog men! You know what it will feel like if you cross words with me again!'

The man had been driven aloft, and had fallen outboard without even a cry as he had lost his hold in the futtock shrouds.

Bolitho wondered how Herrick was managing to ride out the storm, and where he was during each sickening day.

Farquhar had said, 'But for this bloody weather, I'd have caught up with Lysander !'

‘I doubt it.' Bolitho had reached beyond empty agreement. 'Lysander is a faster ship. And she is well handled.'

It was unfair on Farquhar, but he had shown such indifference to Herrick's possible fate that it was all he could do to restrain some more biting comment. Like a nagging conscience, a small voice seemed to repeat, It was your decision. You drove Herrick too bard, too soon. It was your fault.

And then, a week after leaving Syracuse, the gale eased and backed to the north-west, but as the sky cleared and the sea regained its deep blue, Bolitho knew it would take several more days to recover lost ground. To beat back through time and distance which they had surrendered to the storm.

Whenever he went on deck he was aware that the officers on duty were careful to avoid his eye, and stayed well clear of his lonely pacing on the poop. His chosen solitude gave him time to think, although without fresh information it was like re-ploughing old land with nothing to sow.

During the forenoon on the ninth day he was in the cabin, studying his chart and drinking a tankard of ginger beer, something which Farquhar had stored in some quantity for his personal use.

How Farquhar would laugh, if after all there was nothing in Corfu to sustain his theories. He would not show it, of course, but it would be there just the same. It would not merely prove Farquhar correct in his actions, but also that he was far more suited to hold this or some other command.

Sir Charles Farquhar. It was strange that he should be so irritated by the man's title. He was getting like Herrick perhaps. No, it went deeper than that. It was because Farquhar had not earned it, and now would never want for anything again. You only had to look at the Navy List to see where the promotion went. He thought of Pascoe's words and smiled. The 'Nelsons' of this world gained their rewards and even titles on the battlefield, or facing an enemy's broadside. Their precarious advancement was often admired but rarely envied by those more fortunate ashore.

Bolitho walked restlessly around the cabin, hearing the seamen working on deck and in the yards above it. Splicing and re-rigging. After a storm each job was doubly essential. He smiled again. Those more fortunate ashore. In his heart he knew he would fight with all his means to avoid a post at the Admiralty or in some busy naval port.

He returned to the chart and stared at it once more. Corfu, a long, spindly island which seemed about to lock itself snugly to the Greek mainland. A narrow approach from the south, about ten miles across for a ship under sail. From the north, much less. Inviting self-destruction if the French had shore batteries along the high ground. Although the island was separated from the mainland by what was to all intents a small, private sea, some twenty by ten miles in size, the two real hazards were the narrow channels north and south. Also, the one good anchorage was on the eastern shore, so any sort of surprise there was out of the question. Herrick would know it, too. He was stubborn and determined, but he was no fool, and never had been.

He thought suddenly of the young widow, Mrs. Boswell. Strange he had never pictured Herrick being married. But she was exactly right for him. She would not stand by and let others step on his good nature. She would never have allowed him to admit that he could not sustain the posting of flag captain.

Bolitho straightened his back and marvelled that he could even consider such things. He had two ships, and might never find Lysander at all. But whatever happened, he was about to penetrate the enemy's defences in a sea area which was almost unknown to him beyond his charts and available hints on navigation.

There was a tap at the door and the sentry called cautiously, 'Midshipman of the watch, sir '

It was the red-headed Breen.

'Well, Mr. Breen?' Bolitho smiled at him. It was the first time he had spoken with him since being rescued by Harebell.

'The captain sends his respects, sir. The lookout has reported a sail to the nor'-west. Too far off to recognise.'

'I see.'

Bolitho glanced at the chart. Even allowing for their drift and loss of way during the storm, they could not be that far out in their calculations. Osiris's beakhead was pointing approximately north-east, and with luck they would sight the highest range of hills to the southernmost end of Corfu before nightfall. Buzzard had run with the storm, and although Javal would be quick to rejoin the squadron, and might appear even today, he would come from the south and not the north-west where this newcomer had shown herself.

He asked, 'How d'you like being temporarily attached to Osiris's gunroom?'

The boy looked past him towards Nicator's tall outline some three cables astern.

'N-not much, sir. They treat me well enough, but...'

Bolitho watched him gravely. Like the lieutenants, most of the midshipmen in this ship were of good family stock. Farquhar had evidently planned his wardroom and his midshipmen with great care. It was quite common for a captain to take a boy to sea as midshipman, the son of an old friend perhaps, or as some special favour. Farquhar appeared to have taken the custom right through his command.

Breen seemed to think he was expected to add something. 'I keep thinking about the seaman, sir, Larssen. But I'm all right now. I-I'm sorry about the way I acted.'

'Don't be. A sword must bend. If it is made too hard it will snap when it is most needed.'

He wondered why he was trying to save Breen from the inevitable. It came to all of them sooner or later. He recalled his own feelings after a sea fight when he had been a young lieutenant. The guns working so hard and the battle so fierce that there had been no time to treat the dead, even the wounded, with care or respect. The corpses had been pushed overboard from friend and enemy alike, and the wounded had added their cries to the thunder of battle. When the firing had ceased, and the ships had drifted apart, too damaged and hurt to claim victory or offer defeat, the sea had been covered with drifting corpses. Because the wind had dropped during the battle, as if cowed by its savagery, they were made to watch them for two whole days. It was something he often thought about and could never forget.

He said quietly, 'Have some ginger beer.'

Poor Breen, with his rough, scrubbed hands and grubby shirt, he was more a schoolboy than a King's officer. But who in his town or village had seen Malta ? Had been in a sea fight? And how many would ever know the full extent of naval power as it really was, and the men and timbers which made it ?

Farquhar appeared in the door and stared coldly at the boy with a glass in his fist. To Bolitho he said, 'That sail has sheered off, sir.' 'Not Lysander ?'

'Too small.' Farquhar nodded curtly to Breen as he hurried away. 'Brig, according to the masthead lookout. A good man. He's usually right.'

Farquhar seemed much more controlled now that the storm had gone. A waiting game perhaps. Standing aside to see what Bolitho would do.

Bolitho walked to the open stern windows and leaned out above the small bubbling wash around the rudder. A good clear sky, and the horizon astern of Nicator's fat hull was hard and empty. The brig would see more of these two ships than they would of her.